Stroke at 87

He wakes and calls Mama. "Mama!
Shut that water off, it's gonna wash the wall away!"
It is the curtain
flooded with sunlight.

I find him fallen on the bedroom floor.
His fingers scrape at a knot in the hardwood.
He explains, "My pocketknife won't come up."

I set him in the tub and come back to check.
He scrubs angrily at shadows on his skin,
shadows entrenched in wrinkles, shadows
molded to knobby bones. "They let me get so dirty
in that hospital, this black film won't come off."

I lift him from the couch and carry him to bed,
edging sideways through the hall and in the bedroom door.
Too light. Hollow sticks.

Papa,
Papa I can't let go. Your bony weight
won't come out of my muscles.