I need to call my bank, my father says.
His voice like that of a child
whose birthday has finally arrived.
He’s in ICU for pneumonia. On TV,
water is descending over a ledge
and my father doesn’t understand
why the water doesn’t run out.
Water is a funny thing, he says.
It keeps coming down. And I think:
living water from that story in the Bible
where Jesus meets a woman at a well.
Her jar is empty and Jesus tells her
about water that never runs out.
Where can I get this water?
she asks. Where can I get this water
that never runs out? My father was never a fan
of religion—definitely didn’t believe
in heaven. Who is my father
spending eternity with, he’d ask me
as a kind of test (because his father
had two wives). First wife or second?
My father lived in his head. Heaven,
something to discuss over bread
and wine. Water is a funny thing,
my father says again. Followed by
Daisies! when the scene changes. And:
They’re moving in both directions!
His wife—second wife—is dying at home
and he needs to tell his bank about the daisies,
about water that keeps coming down.
The word daisy means “the day’s eye.”
Daisies follow the sun—blooming
at dawn, closing at dusk. In the story,
Jesus tells the woman she’s had five husbands
(this is so she knows he’s a prophet)
and she hurries home to share the news,
leaving her water jar at the well.
Water is a funny thing. The sky on TV
is blue, cloudless. Outside,
rain is coming. When my father returns home,
he’ll ask: Did the lady die?
This poem also appears in the October 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 91, No. 10, page 49). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
