On the Death of Her Father

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A father's hand holding baby's hand — Photo by Hanna Balan on Unsplash

                 For Stella

I dreamt we were already there.
Some things were right 
and some were not.

And somehow Tuesday 
was Wednesday
was Monday again.

I slept then woke
and then fell asleep again 
and when I slept again

I dreamt we were already there.
Things were right some 
and were some not.

My father died yesterday, she said. 
Yesterday, some things were and. 
Today some are not.

Lynley Edmeades

was born in New Zealand. Her first book of poetry, As the Verb Tenses (Otago University Press, 2016), was short-listed for the Bridges of Struga first-book competition and long-listed for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. She recently completed her PhD on sound in the avant-garde poetics of Gertrude Stein, John Cage, and Caroline Bergvall at the University of Otago. She is currently working on her second book of poetry, Ear Cleaning, and her first academic monograph, The Hear and Now. She lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

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