pre-trip checklist
to be done in strict order

shower with plenty of lather
so nothing from today sticks

rinse, repeat, and step out
leave the high window cracked

so the cool breeze can find you
raise goosebumps, shiver you

ready to jump. grab the towel
first dry your face and hair

begin your drift into the past
draw towel around shoulders

pull it tight, arms crossed
and you are in the vivid past

wisp of a skinny, shivering boy
fresh from the public pool

chlorine heavy in the air
lips and fingers chilly blue

but that towel, that towel
that smells of mother's care

eases the chattering teeth
whispers comfort and security

assures you that everything
here, now, there, future

will be okay. and if you doubt
or the memories fade, return

to this time and place when
childhood's simplest needs

were filled by a warm embrace
a soft, dry towel and mother's face                        

"look" says my dad.
he wraps his right hand
around his left forearm
thumb and middle finger
nearly touching.
"look. see how thin
the skin is, how the bones
stick out? feel this."

i oblige, knowing exactly
what i will feel. after
forty years as a nurse,
i know. the muscle is soft
diminished. skin thinning.
"atrophy" i tell him. "atropy
is normal in men of your age."
he knows he is ninety three,
but believes he is forty.

he tenses up his forearm.
"feel it now. how's that?"
i shake my head and answer
"it feels just the same."
not what he wanted to hear

he tells me that this happened
within the last three months
but i know better. i saw it
three years ago when i made it
to his ninetieth birthday party

my stepmother interrupts to ask
"how many kids do you have?"
not remembering that she asked
the same thing five minutes ago
and three minutes before that
i give her the same answer, "five."
and she changes the topic to 
grandchildren. how many?

i tell her, as i did before,
seventeen. she is surprised
"i don't know how many i have,
i would have to count"
but she never does
because dementia doesn't care

i am visiting them to assess
their level of functioning
and i will hear her questions
too many times to count in
the forty-eight hours i'm there
i carefully answer each time
because i know she doesn't remember

"look" says my dad again.
wrapping his right hand
around his left forearm
thumb and middle finger
nearly touching. "look."                        

the TSA keeps changing rules
no warning, no explanation
but they somehow think
we should know by now

airport one - iPad out
separate tray, repeated loudly
for those of us too dumb
or too deaf to hear them
above the ambient buzz

airport two - iPad in
"i said you don't have to 
take out your electronics
leave them IN, leave them IN"
repeated loudly because
i already had my iPad out
and wasn't putting it away
fast enough to suit him

then it was 'stay with your
tray, don't walk ahead - 
STAY WITH YOUR TRAY
to the guy in front of me
which is impossible to do

and then they are merging
two lines into one and i
am being fussed at to move
"right behind that lady,
right there. good."

then it's hands up, stand still
for the scanner, and "come out
but hold up right here."
hand wand, chemical test
on two people before me

when they finally came to me
"hands out straight, wrists.
now turn them over" why?
because i had left my watch on
and everyone who has ever
seen a james bond film knows
how deadly watches can be
how very, very deadly.