Of Mice and Aliens

There's a mouse

Trapped in the egress

Of my sister's basement guest room

Window,

And he’s scratching

On the glass, and I

Think it's aliens at first

(in my half-awake state)

Communicating with each other

Over a vast expanse

Of planetary distances.

I barely sleep, and every time

I drift I hear

That desperate squeak;

A little life just

Trying to survive.

***

The next morning, I climb

Down into the egress, a metal ladder

Biting my hands, warmed already by the

Arizona sun.

The mouse is still

Trying to find a way out, he fell

Over six feet–

Which is a long way

For a little guy!

And landed amongst the

Rotting remains

Of those who came before him.

I coax him

Into a plastic bag, climb up,

Find a spot away from

Human houses, out in the desert

Nearby. I name him Indiana

After a favorite movie character of

Mine, who had similar

Harrowing adventures.

I don't know how

Long he’ll live,

Exhausted as he is,

But at least now

He has a chance.

***

And we go to the hospital

And I don't recognize my father,

This larger-than-life man

shrunk

Into a bed, hooked to tubes and wires,

His heterochromatic eyes are

Closed, his hair is

Thin and disheveled.

The nurse speaks

Softly of DNRs and

Oxygen levels,

I don't know how to

Process this.

Where is the man who

Raised me (sort of)

With a cigarette in his mouth

And a drink in his hand, an

Irreverent joke

Always at the ready?

I kiss his forehead and

He opens his eyes,

I squeeze his hand and

He squeezes mine.

***

We all

Pile into his room and

The nurse says he's still concerned

But they remove the tube from his

Throat and

Dad cracks a joke within minutes.

He has trouble swallowing, so

There's this sucker thing like

At the dentist, and every time he

Coughs I tell him to

Open up.

We stay for hours, and I

Don't know who is going to

Suck out his spit when we leave,

But I am exhausted.

I think we get something to

Eat and go back to my sister's and

I lay down for a minute and

Suddenly it's nighttime.

***

The days are an up-and-down

Emotional ride of good signs

And crashes and

Conversations. Dad tells

Us we're both his

Favorite, he smiles and

Improves and he moves

From ICU to neurology

(and I try hard not to

flirt with the hot, buff

nurse who moves his bed

by herself, even though

I offer to help).

And Dad tells me

I'm a good daughter,

And I don't explain

That I'm not a daughter,

But I want him to say it

To my sister,

Because she's the good one,

She's been here, and she's been

Making the decisions,

She's been baring the brunt

Of his decline

For years,

but she's

Right outside the door

Talking to the doctor,

So I just lie and I say

He's a good daddy.

And I tell him the truth when I say

That I love him.

***

I move up my flight

Because he seems like he's

Better, he seems like maybe

He can move eventually to

Assisted living or hospice or

Something, and my sister is

Leaving for a family trip

And I know this is it,

Guilt creeps in, because

He can't answer the phone

And he can't tell me

What he needs

From across the country

But I need to go home,

I can't stay in this state

Where I feel like an alien

Talking to the people I love

Across a vast expanse of space,

And Dad coughs, and I look at him

He says that he's sorry

For coughing. I tell him

I'm not mad, I'm just

Concerned about him, and I tell

The nurse. They bring him

Drugs to help with pain,

To help with sleep,

And I watch him fade away,

Awake but dreaming,

Those heterochromatic eyes

Unfocused.

I kiss his forehead

And tell him I love him,

And he says

nothing.

***

The next day, my sister

Tells me he's gone.

And we cry together

And hold each other

And we spend all day

Taking care of ourselves.

I take a bath and

Watch a movie

About aliens communicating

Over a vast expanse

Of planetary distances.

The next day, I fly home

Alone, and I see

The ground beneath me

Go from dry desert brown

To lush, 10,000-lake green.

The woman I

Love picks me up

From the airport

And hugs me,

She drives me

To my place

Where she's bought me

A new bed, and I lie in its

Deep comfort and warmth, and I cry

And I feel so, so loved,

And I miss my daddy.

***

As she's leaving, she sees

A dead mouse

On my doorstep.

There's no way

It could be Indiana, but I

Feel the little loss

Stacked on top of

Everything else.

We hope something

Will take him away in

The nighttime, but

He's still there

The next day,

And I pick him up gently

In a plastic-bagged hand,

And I take him to

The nearby pondside

To rest

in peace.