Words upon the death of my father

Leaves bleed from somewhere above.
Some splash the ground, others never land.
Floors that are too clean lead to ICU
where curtains have fallen around a fat quiet.
It hasn't been long they say, offering tea.
I was caught in traffic while he was dying.
Despair hangs like a person from a belt.
He's warm to the touch-
but his face is cool and firm like wax.
I fall into him, want to pull him back inside
himself. I expose his arm;
touch the tattoo which made it his.
I hold the artist's hand.
It no longer belongs to us; or him.
Through lifeless streets of struggling light,
I drive mother home. Home. The word
stings my eyes. We are dissolving
like salt into sudden sadness.
Autumn's crooked wind tugs at my hair.
We will fly away in this car- to an ocean
where diamonds will dance on peaks
of water and laughter will come easily.
I exhale. I blink. I see his body-
still and silent as marble.
Like a drunk, I stagger out and into sleep.
My hands smell of death.
They stack pieces of memory like blocks,
scribble words across a dream's tablecloth.
Charcoal letters grow dark and determined,
"Daddy's not dead. Daddy. Is. Not. Dead."
Up, up inside night's darkness ...stars.

© Copyright 2005 Candy M. Gourlay