Day 990

for Bairbre, again

When the rescuers come
to dig him out of the rubble,
the man, still buried
from his shoulders down,
looks up at them, tells them
to go away. His eyes,
his grimace,
reveal a mixture
of horror and pain. His daughters
are buried far deeper
than he is, he
tells them; he is holding
their hands. No way
to get them out from under
the concrete slabs, the rocks.
The pressure of death.
He needs to stay with them.
He needs to keep holding their hands
until they loosen their grip
on him. On their lives.
He is their father. All
these years he has done
what he could to protect them.
To reassure them. How,
now, even when surely
it will cost him his life,
could he abandon them?