What I Did Not Tell You

1

At the yellow house on our street –

the one where the son once sold crack

out of his converted garage window,

his driveway like a drivethru,

a couple weeks into your hospital stay,

his sister wandered off from bathing her 10-month old.

Maybe to text someone,

or probably to bitch about how absolutely bored

to tears she was, or maybe just to stream

a movie, quien sabe? To cut to the quick,

the 10-month old drowned

in just a tiny bit of soapy water.

The paramedics tried, but no.

All the family stood in their front yard

of hard dirt and high weeds –

and wailed and wailed.

2

It sucks to get old.

Our family doctor, around my age,

was going through something.

Dyed the gray out of his hair,

shaved his mustache,

pumped iron in earnest.

Even I noticed. Surreptitiously,

I checked his wedding band.

Still on, but just barely.

You see, he texted our 28-year old daughter,

nothing gross, no pics of his package,

just an “innocent” invite to coffee.

While you were splayed out

on yet another hospital bed,

I phoned him from your bathroom.

When I told him he lost us as patients,

he started crying, honest-to-God tears,

telling me how sorry he was

doing this when he knew

how afraid I was for you.

I will never forgive him those tears.

(Blogger's note: This poem was originally published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review last month.)