One Day
By Karen Leone
Morphine-
11:15 AM
2:15 PM
4:20
6:15
8:20
10:30
1:15 AM
3:40
5:30
8:00
10:45
What day is it?
12:45 PM
3:15
5:15
7:15
9:15
10:15, 1/2 dose
11:15
My hands look just like yours. I always loved that;
I should have told you.
12:15 AM, 1/2 dose
1:15
2:06
2:06
2:06
Dad?
11:15 AM
2:15 PM
4:20
6:15
8:20
10:30
1:15 AM
3:40
5:30
8:00
10:45
What day is it?
12:45 PM
3:15
5:15
7:15
9:15
10:15, 1/2 dose
11:15
My hands look just like yours. I always loved that;
I should have told you.
12:15 AM, 1/2 dose
1:15
2:06
2:06
2:06
Dad?
82 years
4 weeks
2 hours
6 minutes
Don’t put him in that. He doesn’t belong in there.
6 minutes
2 hours
4 weeks
82 years
My hands look just like his.
And they will
sooner or later
at 2:06 AM
or sooner
or later
one day at the end of someday.
Just wait. Would you just wait?
Let me see my father’s hands.
Please.
And touch once more
before one day at the end of someday,
sooner or later
with my own hands that were his.
After several years of dedicated convalescence, Karen Leone has almost fully recuperated from practicing corporate law and is a freelance writer and co-founder of a tech product development group in Chicago, Illinois. Karen’s work has appeared in Sasee Magazine. By the gift of their joyfulness and unconditional love, her four children remind Karen daily about the virtues of humility and understanding, and of patience, even with herself.