BELATED

Your birthday came and went
but no offense was meant to your memory.
Your life by now is so belated,
I doubt the delay will matter
to anyone but me.
Today, beset by a cold,
my annual remembrance evokes an odd image
out of the many I hold in the album of my mind:
it was you, my father,
who taught me the secret of swallowing a pill —
this lesson learned on the most difficult of all,
that chalky choky miracle called an aspirin.
With deft fingers you carefully positioned
each one on my tongue
(did I really allow this?)
and proved I could then take a gulp
from a glass of water and not gag.
Can any trust be greater than daughter for father?
How I miss your instruction,
on those occasions when given so kindly.


© Ellen Azorin