I found it in the attic,
behind the armoire,
cobwebbed in darkness
and time, a photo album
faded as Kodachrome and
loss, and on the pages,
slanting askew from yellowed
paste, I saw my father.
He stood in a row with other men,
waiting. They wore starched uniforms
in Navy white, bad haircuts, skin showing
above their ears where hair had hidden
the sun, fists held tightly in anxious hands,
and ashen faces. The world was at war.
He had enlisted with hope and fear and ancient
duties to ideals grown like midwestern wheat.
I never met him. I was born 27 days after
his death at Pearl Harbor, 16 days after my
mom heard a knock on her door and saw two
men in starched uniforms, their eyes downcast.
I couldn’t feel the flames he felt. I couldn’t breathe
the water he inhaled. I couldn’t hear his screams
as he sunk along with the Arizona, his flesh
on fire, his dreams deferred like winter wheat threshed.
Decades later, I stood as he had, my haircut as bad,
my uniform as starched, my fears agitated as propellor wash.
I wouldn’t board a ship at Pearl. I trudged through sand in
Iraq, IEDs awaiting each step like vipers, bodies exploding
to repeal an enemy’s 9/11 attack. My troop had taken photos,
too, one day to be stored in darkness. We stood in line, young men
pretending strength, waiting for sacrifice to ideals. From the album,
I felt his eyes, his past overlaying my present like a specter of prophesy.
