Tonight's Poet Corner: 3:48

3:48

by Belinda Roddie

My father called me downstairs

and told me to bring tissue from
the bathroom. He was bleeding
from both nostrils, bending over
the sink to stop the stain from
spreading onto the newly polished wood

instead of the weary metal basin.

"Don't mind it," he gurgled. "It's

fine." But it was 3:48, twelve minutes before

he was supposed to take his purple pills,

and I, listlessly standing beside him

with a wad of paper fragility in my fist,

knew that nothing in this household 

could be defined as "fine."