Fatherly Advice Poem by Christopher Withers

leaning close, your watery, bloodshot eye
attempts to focus, yet fails each time.
your breath belies a day spent working,
as your sterile, whisky soaked breath
chokes my senses.
each word, you force upon my ears,
expelling the horrors of death, your death,
how one day you will not be here,
how your own father, my unknown grandfather,
declined, passed away.
but rather than fatherly advice or comforting words,
you seem intent on drawing tears.
and when finally, the tears do fall,
your befuddled state confuses
their meaning and their source.