Castle Hospital ICU, Oahu, Hawaii

By: Anna DiMartino

My father calls to tell me he’s dying–

the priest has come to give him his last rites.

His words, a slow churn of gravel,

each syllable dredged from a muddy gutter.

I assure him there’s no priest, it was a dream.

He says he’s made his peace, has no regrets,

then asks about my brother and starts sobbing.

I remember my father’s temper, his thick, calloused hands,

the flash of heat that seared, bloomed raw, his brand

on my skin, but his words, barbed and sharp,

left indelible marks, hooked deeper

into my most tender parts.

Maybe fading memory allows him

to let go, to find peace and maybe

the child in me needs to hold on, to pretend.

And now he’s telling me about the food,

arugula salad, impossibly green leaves, slick

with a chocolate dressing, just like the one

he saw on television just last week. I wonder

if they ever serve arugula in the ICU. He tells me

there’s a parrot in his room, and I can see the scarlet

and emerald wings beating

against the sterile white walls,

a vibrant burst of life confined

in this place where people die, the chirps

and beeps from his monitors morphing in his dreams, into

the rustle of wings, letting him take flight.

---

Anna DiMartino is a writer, artist, teacher, and editor of Jackdaw Press. She has an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry from Pacific Univer-sity. Her poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Lake Effect, Slipstream, Whale Road Review, and other literary journals. Her non-fiction essay, The Housemate, is forthcoming in Sneakerwave.