My Father

In the end it is touch that holds memory.
The other senses are immediate
And defend the present territory.
The other four are there to navigate.

Tonight my father went under the knife
And I waited alone with my cell phone
To see what would become of this one life;
Together, separate, and both alone.

For an hour in the last waiting room,
I remembered him as sound and insight,
To perspicacious for the cool boxed room
That would contain him in his last night.

At ninety-four how could he have survived?
I kissed the forehead of a man, alive.