in the room with my father’s corpse

by Carol Shillibeer

I watch his chest,

make sure he’s dead.

It’s hard

to breathe.

I don’t know why

because I can’t

say I love the bastard—

despise

his character

admire

his mind—

yet here

in this closed-off room

foetid air

undertone of bleach

I fight

to breathe.

Move closer—stand

over his body

look down

at his now frail chest

buttoned in pale

cotton.

Close my eyes—

concentrate

on the darkness there.

Only in that emptiness

does my body

start itself again—

a heave, inrush of air

stale and still—

it occurs to me—

I’m an orphan!

I’m an orphan!

Leave his body behind.

Leave the house.

I chant for hours.

I’m an orphan!

Smile.

Leave the city, the country.

I feel so unutterably free.

And yet, decades later,

here I am

with him

in this poem—

a tiny sprout

of love still lurks,

green-tipped and fertile—

but I think

it’s for me.

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