Night Shift
       

Listening to daddy play dodge ball
with the sandman
is like holding vigil over our newborn
during his first night at home.

Except here, on the cancer ward,
the coveted days that can become weeks
and then hopefully months
don't automatically accumulate.

The hacking and coughing and beeping
that drift in from the other rooms
interrupt even the best of short sleeps
not already broken by nurses
and attendants checking vitals,
giving breathing treatments, adjusting IV drips,
dispensing meds, waking him only to ask
how he's been sleeping and if he needs anything.

He's patient, a skinny reclining Buddha.
I would've already said what his eyes are saying,
"I need yal to leave me alone and let me sleep"
at least for a couple of hours.
But instead, he just smiles like our baby.

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Copyright © 2019 Frank X Walker All rights reserved
from Last Will, Last Testament
Accents Publishing
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission