1.
Nurse Hayes asked me
who was I ringing?

I told her
my father.

She said that can’t be.
Your father he

would be all thirty years dead
was what Nurse Hayes said.

2.
I told her
you give me the shits

and went ahead and
dialled his number –

all of five digits –
but his number was engaged.

Which came as no surprise,
at least to Nurse Hayes.

3.
Later in the dayroom
a message came through –

a phone call for me,
my father somebody thought.

And it was,
it was my father;

we were
talking to each other.

4.
He asked was I writing poems?
He seemed to think I was.

I can’t remember now
the rest that was said:

but before Hayes
cut my father off,

I did get to ask him,
What’s it like dead?