Smoke as Mother

My father had a stroke yesterday

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This hospital room is full,
yet it couldn’t feel more empty.

You fill the space with half-written jokes,
self-deprecating jabs,
shallow questions that beg no answers.

They leave your lips —
anything to ease the felt-weight of this silence.
What’s left unsaid is heavier.

Your hard, stubborn exterior —
just a facade —
cracks as they deliver your walker.

Fear slithers into bed,
each inch of you entangled.
We both wonder: How did it come to this?

You were supposed to give me time —
years to watch you soften, slow,
gray around the edges.

Time to brace myself
for the slow erosion of strength.

But this came like a thief —
sudden, sharp —
a stroke collapsing years
into a single moment.

You were never one to give me time.