Last Advice
Jeffrey Harrison
The night before my father died
I dreamed he was back home,
and I in my old room
on the third floor, and he
was calling up to me
from the bottom of the stairs
some advice I couldn’t hear
or recall the next day when,
standing over him
back in the ICU
full of the chirping of machines
we had decided to unplug,
I remembered the dream
and heard him call my name.
About this poem
“‘Last Advice’ is from a series of poems about my father’s death. The house in the poem is the house where I grew up, outside of Cincinnati, and where my parents were still living when my father died. In fact, I was sleeping in that house when I had the dream, though not in my old room on the third floor.”
– Jeffrey Harrison
About Jeffrey Harrison
Jeffrey Harrison is the author of “Into Daylight” (Tupelo Press, 2014) and five other books of poetry. He lives in Dover, Mass.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2015 Jeffrey Harrison. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
