After the Call from the Night Nurse
by Adam Chiles
Outside, steady agitations of rain against glass.
My father鈥檚 spring buds bragging fires through soil.
I lean back in his chair, and listen. Everything in the room
a form of deafening. Wheatfield with Crows, its migraine
latched above the mantel. His books, LPS, marshalled
in their gilings. The red gourd pulsing a strange anatomy.
These bifocals, an orphan in my hands. If I lean back
I can smell him. His oils and resins. Those dark perfumes
the body leaves behind. His chair a calendar of tar.