My Father Called Out For Me

Robert McDonald

Long after midnight, his urgency woke me from the bedrock of sleep.

How many times has he called for me these past few years

 

since my mother’s been gone, for help to the bathroom, a glass

of water, the wet sheets changed? It took a minute

 

to remember he’s half a continent away. And then I was awake, truly

awake, sure that soon I’d be getting the call, the phone call

 

I’ve expected, his departure. But hours paced by, the sky brightened,

from night’s long darkness to a velveteen blue. He was not dead,

 

just alone in his assisted living studio apartment, in this time

of plague, deaf and alone with his memory torn. With quavering hands

 

he tries to assemble the scraps. Five hundred miles but I heard

his voice call my name. The sky took on the color of cutlery,

 

then roses, and despite my grief, or because of my grief, just like

every morning, the finches who live

 

in the ivy next door, the house finches

stirred and sang.