Two senior ladies

are back from visiting a neighbor, now

in the hospital.  She

will come home, after a week of therapy.

It must also have been therapy, when

familiar faces walked in,

and assured her the cat was being fed.

I received that caring ministry

of visitation—my family and my friends

beside the adjustable bed;

I, sky-high on medicinal morphine,

calling attention to a seal

in the hall, balancing bubbles on its nose.

Afterward, my understated son-in-law

said to his wife,

“Your father seemed a bit odd today.”

Oh, but that seal looked very real to me.