After the Call from the Night Nurse

by Adam Chiles

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Outside, steady agitations of rain against glass.
My father’s spring buds bragging fires through soil.
 
I lean back in his chair, and listen. Everything in the room
a form of deafening. Wheatfield with Crows, its migraine
 
latched above the mantel. His books, LPS, marshalled
in their gilings. The red gourd pulsing a strange anatomy.
 
These bifocals, an orphan in my hands. If I lean back
I can smell him. His oils and resins. Those dark perfumes
 
the body leaves behind. His chair a calendar of tar.