Your mother blames the breakfast scramble, evening commute
why you never "took" to Sunday mass; cat furled
sleeping like your dad 'til midday. She shows off
postcards mailed when the carrier drops anchor ̶
her only son leaving family footprints 'cross the globe!
Handsome unsmiling in uniform your picture's framed
for duty in the living room.
She'd much prefer you
wear a gentler safer (Ph.d not Sgt.) tag on your chest.
She worries: who are these older women showering
gifts on him? what do they ask in return?
In the wilderness cries of loneliness
& cold are not wolves' only.
The Marine Captain's retirement party must have been
a blast, though why is he the greatest guy you know?
(Sometimes the enemy's in camouflage salutes
or bows; 'the kiss', remember?)
Always too busy, orifice-overwhelmed: your mother's
pow! pow! at my hard boiled eggs. Might be true; again
too late to reel you home. Stay in touch
on line is all, for now I ask
– W.W.
TO A DAUGHTER
He never hoped for you, he never not:
it was you who gave birth to a father.
A baby, you wanted often to play
with the only friend you had all day long
but the drug of Work would pull him away
to a desk, piano, easel or stove.
If he felt you were keeping him from other
life like salt running out, he might bark
Leave me alone, in the anger of fear,
and he would feel his voice quiver your spine.
But you never stopped running to embrace
him, teaching how gratuitous is love.
Your father's love for you, shadowed by pain,
clouded by duty, was never as free.
Yet though you're now 'tall as a lantern post',
you still sit on his knee and hug his neck;
but that he once frightened you still frightens him
should he snap Leave me alone, meaning now Don't.
(from "Fabula Rasa" by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 