A poem by my son Michael on my brother Mike (born May 28, 1920; died June 13, 1980).
LAST CALL
Rallying in the home stretch to make up for lost time,
my namesake and achingly alcoholic Uncle Mike transformed
himself into the champion relative at the nursing home.
At the wire, this mother's son, who'd drunk his life away
at the horse track, rose more daily than the sun.
The inner circle of residents, as they are called, raced
and jockeyed for the royal ride of his teasing horseplay.
The annunciation of his last toast to the sport of kings,
after the first leg of the Triple Crown, drew tears of praise,
just as his galloping gourmet birthday for Gramma's eighty-fifth
was talk of the home for days. So witness after solitary witness,
the witless and the terribly clear, like shot after shot, inalienable
as the interminable arguments of alcohol--all testified at last call,
this son came from nowhere to become Michael the Archangel.
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