pull yourself together

My father, is a dying man.
He hoists me up onto his workhorse knees,
slow like da Vinci's model pulley system,
and I watch the room slide past.
I am never able to get over the fact
that while I move, everything else
does not.
I can feel his compact bones
beneath me, a picnic table birth.
I trace his flesh as my flesh, pictographically
committing his sighs and sojourn smiles
to memory. Because I know he is a man-
woe shades the arch of his brow and
the clefts of his hands,
the truth in his resignation.
I have the same style of falling as he;
we both found this out when he read
Mother Goose to me.
Humpty Dumpty is my favourite,
and I request it like a Veteran war story,
noticing him wince.
He is dying, my father, because he is a man,
and men need a reason to say goodnight.
Time lays at his feet
like a bloodhound weary from a hunt,
and now content with a hot supper.
But sitting on his penitent lap, I worry my lip
and wring my hands, eyes downcast to the vacant floor.
"You'll always be here, won't you?"
But he knows the trick,
and lifts my chin to whisper, ever soft, ever deep,
"Pull yourself together."
as much to himself for he is me.
I wince, and reply with familiar trial,
"And you'll be just fine."
He hugs me close so I can breathe his shirt and beard,
like a great sorrow encapsulated in a weathered hold,
we both know, such stories are our own.
I take his hand to warm it up,
but already wood is stone,
warmth a holly tree internal,
and man is going home.