Does your father have a history of paranoia?

Caroline Hayduk

A faceless nurse asks and I say

He never let me buy anything from infomercials. He spent
six years after the divorce hand-delivering old toys found in cupboards. 

What am I gonna do with this? To the mice in his hands and
to the woman on the phone.

wet brain they fear all that time he spent on 
ships in the Marines 

water sloshed around him like the ditch out front 
we swam in when it rained. He could have been drinking—

crashes a car/leaves a toaster on/fries a crabcake to
a black saucer/feels his heart pounding too fast/too little 

That’s it his heart taking on too much water instead 
of just his brain He says they put cameras in his room. 

They know it was cheap wine. He won’t take an IV. He broke
his cellphone— 

they know they know
they know

You’re my ace in the hole. He used to say. My 
number on this plastic chart. He needs to leave. His drill sergeant

is coming. I see him, sweat slicking his still black hair to his forehead.
Ships bellowing on the horizon. The hole where they tried to poke an

IV before he ripped it out. Me lagging behind
in the rust colored rain

Caroline Hayduk is a soon-to-be Poetry MFA graduate from the Wilkes Creative Writing Program. She serves at the Poetry Editor at River and South Review and teaches English at Keystone College. She has been published in Northeast Poets Anthology in 2019 and 2020. She lives and thrift shops in Scranton, PA.