Miracles of the Kingdom of Sleep I

In a daughter’s dream her dead father
lifts a putrid leg (she thinks I must
take him back to the doctor) into the pants
of a “restraint suit” she had to buy ($58.95!)
so he would pee into his diaper
(he turns for her, she buttons up
the back) like a good boy, and not unzip
in the middle of the retirement home
dining hall. His flaccid forearms--
islanded with sores--shake
when he punches his own meds
out of bubble packs, with trembling,
fierce fingers. Then he kicks
his wheelchair away like a penitent
at Lourdes. Now he’s cruising
the dining hall aisles, glad-handling
the gents, slapping their backs; talking again,
he’s soft-talking the ladies
in Alzheimer tongues. He twirls his pearly
handlebar moustache and she is sailing
on the prow of his bike. He soldiers
his shoulders back and she is riding them
into the breakers, her cheek laid
on the ebony waves of his hair,
his arm clasping her legs, the two of them
an ocean-cleaving figurehead. Now
she knows: he has hoisted
the coffin lid and muscled through six feet
of dirt. Her heart swells,
unfurls and skims.

copyright 2007 Judy Kronenfeld
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Barnwood magazine
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