When the Air Clears

I remember thinking

the world felt strange.

My dad was always the one

who had it all figured out.

He explained things to me—

car payments, paychecks,

insurance and premiums.

Now I do those things

for him, as we sit together

and talk about what he’s

watching on CNN.

The air is thick—

the dishwasher humming,

the TV murmuring.

A static settles in the room

as his confusion arrives.

I can barely breathe.

I lower the volume.

I listen.

Every validation of his thoughts,

as I prepare his platter

of peanut butter and jelly

for the fridge,

grounds him—

returns him to recognition.

As I scan the refrigerator

for what he ate the day before,

we talk about how he did things

when he was a selectman.

Suddenly, his pride

comes back into his body.

He is no longer the man

who can’t find his garage.

He ran a town.

He owned his business.

The room shifts.

The air clears.

The frequencies align.

We laugh as he fills

the dog bowl again—

that dog eating him

out of house and home.

It’s a good day

when the air is clear.

He says he loves my visits.

And I think what he loves

is being witnessed—

the part of himself

that still remains

in a world that suddenly feels

weird

and very big.

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