DAD

 Old and frail at the end,

barely able to withstand,

living in a doublewide

near a marshy everglade,

his second wife by his side,

a night nurse when my mother died,

she took the reins and began

to stride along his side, to guide

his long remaining fade.

He always said that you raise

your children to leave you,

because they would, and I did,

but not before he appraised

me not only of the way things are,

but how they can be if, unafraid,

we all learn to just get along

in this brave new world we've made.

With that, he slipped around the bend.