Julian Bauld

Father in the Next Room

The corner of Acadia and Rupert Street
is soft as felt.
The drivers don’t stop at all,
but roll softly into their turns,
like fallen lovers lost to sleep.

The tree shakes in the winter
and swells in the summer
when I’ve watched from my window,
I too wanting to leave.

My grandfather died in this bed
and I lie sleepless in it now
looking out the window
thinking about waking my own father
who lies sleeping in the next room
dressed in his cancer’s costume,
bony and bald.

Let’s leave it all here, I want to say.
let’s go away.
But here we stay,
Not trapped, but knowing 
that no road is soft,
and that there is nowhere to be lost.

Julian Bauld grew up in Nova Scotia and is a writer and teacher in Toronto, Canada.