Hospital Song

They need to run more tests but Dad pleads, "I want to go home." This man who built houses can't stand by himself to pee.

I sit two hours with him daily, passing my sisters or brother in the hall on either end of the visit. We touch hands, squeeze.

A curled little old man under layers of cabinet-warmed blankets, he's shaking, all ice-blue eyes and Viking-white beard under sunken cheeks.

Television is election chaos. No help there. I realize what's on my iPad, close his door, crank its volume: Dad and Bob Dylan, gravel-throated friends, a hospital bed duet.

From Guest Contributor Tjorven