Green Linden Press

Two Pieces of Toast

I walked into the kitchen this morning & found two pieces of toast that had been toasted & then left stacked beside the microwave. I picked them up to see if they were burnt but they were perfectly browned, cold & hard. I looked & saw my father-in-law eating toast & peanut butter & asked, Karl did you make these, & he said, I might have & laughed. These are the days one moment leaves him & another finds him, the days when I must remind him to finish his sentence, or say Karl where are you going, & he waits but then finds that absence in his head & fills it with whatever vanished for a bit. He’s been like this since the last strokes, but still can talk & make what he can to eat, he won’t give up his license yet but soon. Soon nothing good is ahead, so I cling to these awkward moments when he is lost & he is good at laughing at himself, & remind him to eat, or make him something, & say, take your phone if you leave, & these last days when he makes a joke or tries to fix something I know he can’t anymore, this man who used to work in a high-tech plant making parts for helicopters & planes, I try not to think ahead. I watch him stumble through the house on his neuropathic legs & remind him to use his cane. I no longer get mad when he leaves his cup on the counter. I don’t want him bending to the dishwasher. All his messes over the years I now forgive. I see him & see myself & see my own grandfather. I see us fathers, one inside the other, this man I met through marriage & long admired his ability to fix anything as I can fix very few things that are without words. & when he is without words, I will give him mine & whisper, here old man. Sing, quietly, with the wind. For wild is the wind. & one day we will weep & he will rise. I take these pieces of cold bread & break it into pieces the size of Eucharist & toss it out on the lawn for the crows who fly to me with their joyous caws.