A Recovery

When he was in the ICU, my father was wrapped 
in blankets from the warmer, the linens enveloping 
 
him in a shell of protection. We imagined he would 
emerge from this cover as something new, like a deer, 
 
antlers bright with blood-softened velvet. We wondered if, 
in his new body, he would remember the rhythmic sounds 
 
of the ventilator, mimic them as he chewed bundles of
grass between his molars. Or if he would remember 
 
his wrists tied to the bed rails to keep him from removing 
the tubes and wires, undoing any progress and unraveling 
 
our names from deep in his hemispheres. It was my job 
to create an archive through the collection of remnants: 
 
When the boy and I retrieved our father’s truck from the
field, I peeled the sticky notes, checklists and itineraries,
 
from the windshield and the dash, taped them into a journal
with a cottonwood leaf, a flattened length of IV tubing, 
 
an origami crane made by my aunt in the waiting area of the
emergency room. My foot was heavy on the gas the whole way 
 
home, a rush to get away from what I couldn’t describe then: 
The earthy smell of unwashed hunting clothes, the boy’s hair, 
 
color of autumn husks, the yellow brown of a young fawn, 
just visible out of the corner of my eye—