A Father Finishing Up
He zipped up his life like it was a sports bag,
lying in his sickbed in a private room
high up in Nyköping Hospital
at midsummer 1992,
unconscious for a couple of days
He tied his jaw up
so that no one should see
his gaping mouth
sucking for air in deep space
He set out in his burning boat,
smoke rising through the ages;
his life's energy a rising thermal
into the atmosphere,
merging with all the other thermals
rising on that day around the planet
Last minute he mumbled something,
and a shiver could be detected
around him;
maybe something in his early farmhand days
needed his intervention;
perhaps a newborn calf that craved his attention –
or perchance this was just a remark
to a night-shift comrade at the steel plant
just before his retirement, a couple of decades earlier
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2026-10-13 at 19:44
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