Linda Umans
Visiting Hours

Father hospitalized near daughter lying on a breathing bed
scent of white nurse coated in jasmine antiseptic.

Daughter receding, leg lost below the knee, thin and thinner.
In the silence is air, her gray eyes large at him above the Jello.

He stares but no words from the hero worshipped by this girl into woman.
Even birthday cake memory calls up nothing; nothing brings the words.

"Bring it, Dad!" Oh, hospital ironic, his actual heart gives out to longtime gin,
lord of the magnified, nights lost at home stumbling after cat.

Daughter bearing a child's transplanted kidney wheels herself
to celebrate the father, now actually exalted, as it continues

exalted father celebrated by transplanted daughter herself
kidney-bearing child on wheels. Home after stumbling cat

and actual lost nights, The Magnified Lord's longtime heart
out-gives to gin, ironic hospital. Oh, Dad. Words? Nothing.

Memory even of cake, birthday girl, this woman. Nothing calls but
worshipped hero's Jello'd stares. Gray air thinner. Thin

receding daughter. Knee in antiseptic coat, nurse in hospital
daughter near father on bed breathing jasmine.