June 2022
Michael Minassian
mikialminassian@gmail.com
Author's Note: I write a lot of fiction as well as poetry, and so I often take liberties when writing a poem. For example, I have several poems about “my father” (quote marks intentional) that are not based in fact. The father in those poems has variously: invented a time machine, lived in the basement, and built a fallout shelter. But some poems are based on actual events including this one which appears in my book A Matter of Timing in slightly different form.

Quote of the Month: When death came, you said, “I’ll go there.” - Robert Bly in his poem “When William Stafford Died”

Final Jeopardy

I stayed in my father’s house
the last few months of his life.

My old place sold,
the new one waiting
across the country
as I finished the last
semester of my contract.

We watched Jeopardy! 
together every night
while my step-mom 
cleaned up after dinner
and my half-brother
hid in his room,
trying to convince
his ex-girlfriend 
to pick up the phone.

When my dad was younger,
he would shout out
answers, wrong or right;
sports, history, and dinosaurs
his best categories,
sometimes forgetting
to respond in the form
of a question.

That damn Merv Griffin,
he’d yell, who ever heard
of giving the answer first?

The day before I left,
the last time I saw him,
knowing how sick he felt,
we watched one more episode.

Bet it all, he told me,
when he heard the category
was Shakespeare plays,
knowing that was my favorite.

As the cut to commercial 
came and we waited
for the Final Jeopardy answer,
I heard him sigh 
and whisper:
Why am I still here? 

As if he knew 
what was coming,

what was behind 
the blue card
at the end.
A slightly different version was published in A Matter of Timing
©2022 Michael Minassian
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