When I was a boy there were a few small moves to learn. As in, because he was a sailor, on the Great Lakes, Dad taught us to braid rope back into itself and to tie new knots. And, then, when we were done, he would hold onto one end and I would walk away from him with the other, to straighten the rope back out, unrolling all the twists into resting lines. And in the garage we wound them in this way, back into even and clockwise loops, to tie them around the middle, and to hang them over spike nails up on the wall.
Then it was like this, in the hospital also, and every day I watched him become ready. And he would sit up straight, on the bed, and organize the oxygen line, looped from his ears to the wall, and the thinner lines also, hooked into his arms and tapped to bags of morphine. I sat in the chair by the window and I watched how, first, he untangled his clear tubes out into long straight lines. And then, hand over hand, he curled them into neat wound sets. And he did this until he was unable.
Now there are a few moves that I'll notice and steps left that I'll trace. As in, here I am collecting my headphone cords, before I put them away. And I straighten them out and wind them into small clockwise loops, each time, and then carefully put them down into my jacket pocket. And, even like this, I'll think about him today.