Signals

Signals

At the end of our last visit, I waved
as the car slowed away from the curb,

and Dad waved back—straightened
in his wheelchair where he’d parked it
at the living room’s picture window,

and raised both arms and moved them
like a signalman wielding invisible flags
on a ship’s sinking deck. With a shock

I saw that he was waving to a vanishing
image of himself, signaling in distress,

at sea in a mirror made of lost time.

— Joseph Hutchison, see more House of Mirrors

This poem is offered as part of our July theme: Ship, Sail, Boat

T. S. Poetry