1.
You are forty-four years old.
You have a wife and two kids,
your daughter leaves for
two weeks in August ’99. You
are not there when she
returns, you,
two-thirds a father,
with the remainder tethered
to twenty yards of tubing and
a rented oxygen tank
on the side of the bed
you fell out of two years ago-
that first time they blew
into you, assumed you
dead and took it back,
Sudden Cardiac Death: suddenly
Thank God, the Stony Point Police,
their rescue breath. There’s that and
some tumble weed rolling
blackouts and a bleeding
piccline stuck in your
already crowded chest-
{ A heart is the size of a balled
fist, yours is four times a fist,
blooming in a ribcage
that has expanded to contain you,
your virus.}

2.
You have a view.
December 1999,
from the sixth floor
of Colombian Presbyterian,
New york, NY.
You are phonecall father
and every other weekend,
time and weather permitting-
but you are god of room 301B,
Status 1A, with a six month tenure,
you point a finger over the FDR
a break light spectacle
in the holiday rush.
You will the cars
into each other, coax a little
Type A to dirty
an EMT's latexed fingers,
a still beating heart
in someone's chest, and
that's the catch- brain dead
or collapsed lung but:
{You pray
Please god,
Let the heart beat
Into an Igloo cooler and scrub
Me into something blue tonight,
Amen.}

3.
You ride a limousene
To your August house on
January 7th.

4.
You celebrate two birthdays.

12/28/2003

Author's Note: Repost: Happy Birthday, Dad. (Joe Gleason, heart transplant recipient 12/28/99)

Posted on 12/28/2003
Copyright © 2024 Christina Gleason