Jerome Daly
You came to me again last night—
I was toweling your hair after a bath.
Eyes closed, no words or whimper,
A heavy weight in a white room.
And yet, the last time I saw you alive,
Radiation had reduced you to empty marrow.
The fallen bird you found
In the backyard, so long ago,
And the gentleness in your eyes and hands
As you placed it in a cage for protection,
The dream changed all that to a single feather,
Shades of white and grey and red.
How strange to see blood on the feather.
Birds don’t bleed they fly, I wanted to say.
The dream—now a lone lamppost
shining on rain-drenched asphalt.