Many-Storied House: Poems

New Room

36 Downstairs  Garage New Room When I first saw Daddy in the ICU, still on a respirator, he motioned for a notepad and wrote, underlining each word: Prince Edward Island He meant to go there. And that imagining was the healthiest he ever got. He went downhill for a month until doctors, claiming success, sent him home to die. Then the new room, made from our old garage, meant for an office, was perfect for his sickroom. Just six steps down from the kitchen— more than Daddy could manage but few enough so Mother was never far away. She or my brother could help him to the bathroom. He hadn’t spoken in a while. Words were leaving, like the power to swallow, like any desire to go on. Yet one day Daddy appeared in the kitchen doorway—too weak Downstairs  Garage 37 and wobbly for the journey he’d just made. “I didn’t come this far,” he said, “to be separated from you,” and sat down at his table for the last time. ...