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
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.

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(c) 2015 Jeffrey Harrison. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate