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Leaving

1958 –

No matter how he wrested himself silent in night,
six days post-stroke he woke fluent in former languages,
backtracking this time here.
 
Mercy nurses, attendants, remedied in their own.
Once he registered, all he cawed out was
          if it’s too far gone, we need to talk.
 
     All of this, what I am, doesn’t know how to die.
     All I know how to do is survive. All I ever done.
 
     If it’s time, tell me, tell me, give me four days. 
     I’d like to have that blanket Dustin designed.
     Damnit, I hate to leave this beauty,           life.
 
On the fourth, came the Pendleton, delivered
right on time. His breath slowed, eased, then quit.
That was it.
 
After some hours the rest of us slept.
Some of us sleep still left.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was born in Amarillo, Texas, on August 4, 1958, and grew up in North Carolina, Canada, and on the Great Plains. In her initial days of high school, Hedge Coke dropped out and went to work sharecropping tobacco, working fields and waters to support herself. She had already been working in factories, fields, and food service on a North Carolina child work permit since early youth. She finished her GED at sixteen years old and went on to study photography, traditional arts, and writing in community education classes at North Carolina State University.

About Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

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About this Poem

“My father took his journey on July 13, 2016, at ninety-four. He had rheumatoid arthritis and polio since childhood, became deaf during World War II, blind after my mother passed, suffered dozens of AFib-related strokes, as well as sepsis, a broken neck and hip, and many instances of near-death, before I realized he did not know how to do anything but survive. He asked me to have the talk with him if he wasn’t getting better (after being told repeatedly he would die and didn’t). He loved life so much; it pained him to leave, yet he had no fear of leaving. He asked for the Spring Pendleton Blanket designed by Dustin Mater to wrap himself in for his final rest—four days—and then he left in peace. This is a tribute to his will.”
—Allison Hedge Coke

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More by this poet

First Morning Poem

for Nancy Morejon

DC, Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2008, Adams House Suite

In a room facing chimneys
over the place Nancy Morejón rests
between sleeps lining free lines
she whispers to hearing DC:
Obsidiana, Vilma en Junio,
Un Gato Pequeño A Mi Puerta.

Morning is birdsong
in an old Spanish town.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

2016

America, I Sing Back

for Phil Young, my father, Robert Hedge Coke, Whitman, and Hughes

America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.

Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.

My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

2016

Street Confetti

for Stephanie


Right across Turk Street, south side intersection Hyde,
in the tenement where 911 won’t summon up a blue,
a man beats his woman,
the twentieth time or more, their kids bawling.
Over here, in this flat up on the third,
above blazing red neon signs highlighting
the Triple Deuce Club low below, I listen while
wired white hippies move furniture across checkered tiles 
other side my sister’s arched plaster ceiling till way past 3 a.m.
Shuffling with a sofa as if rearranging the heavens in my mind.

Me, I sleep. Or try to.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

2005

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Leaving

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