Father

There’s a stranger in the hall
He sits and smokes his rolled up cigarettes without
Contemplation.
He holds the remote control,
lifts it to his tired palm as with Prozac he would.
I don’t believe there’s anything worthy of attention on screen,
really,
But he’s riveted and melts into
fictitious characters at most,
football matches and fouls
-impossible are these imaginary television roles.

The stranger has sat in an old wreck for a chair
For far too long;
Tobacco and pheromones staling into cane,
Living and non-living,
Aging and withering,
Letting Technicolor inspire his inert campaign.

I think the stranger would like to talk.
Perhaps once in a while when
he’s got something more significant besides
‘Pass me the coffee’
Or muttering ‘Shit’ after sneezing.

Stranger’s got his pulse affiliated to
failure and depleting existence
chained through his veins.
Life’s annuity never went beyond
the paid cigarettes, and the old cane chair,
and maybe a divorce from that crumb of a marriage.

7 years he still sits there and stares,
Cigarette in hand and brain with cracks.
Trying his hardest to pretend I’m not really there,
even as I walk through the door
through these years
and through television re runs,
wearing his blood like a curse in this life.