When my father just turned 17
he took to the sofa.
The big tall boy wouldn’t get up
except to pee.
That’s what my Babcia told me.
That means grandma in Polish.
She said he just laid there
started losing weight.
He quit going to school at St. Thomas.
So what could me & Pa do
except sign the papers for him to go.
He went to something called Boot Camp
& then fresh out of that
they sent him somewhere else
for some gun training.
It was such a short time.
Then straight to Japan.
Straight to the fighting.
He never got to wear the white hat
& the dress blue suit that you see.
Such a beautiful suit
but they never gave him one.
So that’s Babcia’s story.
I’ll skip my childhood story
growing up with my psycho Dad
but my Mom had it worse.
He was a drinking man & dementia
put him in a nursing home at 62.
Korsakoff syndrome does that.
It comes when a drinking man
doesn’t take time to eat.
Shot & a beer & malnutrition
is bad for the brain.
The court appointed me
his guardian & conservator
because no one else would do it
& he just wouldn’t die.
He kept on rolling
in his wheelchair & in his diaper
long after his fighting days
& drinking days were over.
His legs & his bladder were ok.
The big tall boy just didn’t want
to walk or get up to pee.
Mark James Andrews lives and writes in Metro Detroit. He is the author of five chapbooks, At the Ice Cow Queen on Mack (Alien Buddha Press), So I Lit a Fire for The Last Thanksgiving (Alien Buddha Press), Motor City is Burning & Other Rock & Roll Poems (Gimmick Press), Compendium 20/20 (Deadly Chaps) and Burning Trash (Pudding House Press), as well as a poetry recording Brylcreem Sandwich (Bandcamp).
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