-
Coded Message
- Manoa
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 14, Number 1, 2002
- pp. 65-67
- 10.1353/man.2002.0016
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Manoa 14.1 (2002) 65-67
[Access article in PDF]
Coded Message
John Mckernan
1
I believe
That my father
In his dying
Prowled the corridors
Of Saint Joseph's Hospital
Looking for stained glass
Searching particularly
For a sword of white light
Next to a wide curve
Of cobalt blue
Those were Mary's colors
& the colors
Of a palomino
On a high ridge
Against the sky in West Omaha
2
On that thin white sheet
My father never gave up his dying
He gave up the deep tan of his hands
He gave up the images
Of his house on Cass Street
Deep in the skull under his blue eyelids [End Page 65]
Some mornings
He seemed
To give up his breath
To the shivers
When a quiet nun entered his room &
Threaded a rosary about his fingers
Until the silver-threaded locust beans
Would slide to a white tile floor A tiny
Jesus bouncing in the glow on sun-washed wax
3
On that thin white sheet
My father kept trying
To leave his body on Earth
He tried to leave
Through the thick grooves
Of those Irish toenails
He tried to leave
Through hidden wisdom teeth
Then through two front teeth
With their pain-filled silver helmets
At the end He kept trying
To float up the IV drip Past
The iced needles of insulin Into
The calm syllables of coma
Whispering his name in a new language [End Page 66]
4
Months later I walked miles in snow
To the hospital & sat
In a chair in that corner
Staring for hours
Toward a bright white wall
Bleached by sunlight
I stared even longer
At the sheet
Tight Flat White Taut
Speechless as a sun-rinsed cloud
I was
Quiet as floor shadow
Silent as a quart of black paint
Still as a bottle of India ink
I have never left that room Not once
John McKernan has recently published poems in West Branch, Georgia Review, and Paris Review.
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