the last conversation
has mostly faded,
but i still remember one thing.
with hollow eyes
and a look i might
only describe as fear,
my mother said something like,
“I’m afraid your father
might be in hell, Dan.
Weren’t his last words
who’s there? and
why is it so dark?”
No one knows
my father’s last words.
A nurse said he simply asked,
“What’s happening?”
Yet, somehow my mother twisted
those words to have more
meaning in her own mind.
Did she wonder if my father
went to hell out of concern?
Or was it that same old judgment
clean to the end, that sense
of competitive righteousness?
Or maybe, she was afraid
for her own place
in the afterlife?
