There is a graveyard where veterans go
when they’re done living. A river,
deep and fast, carries their souls to the
ocean that touches a foreign shore
where they fought. My father’s body
lies in a coffin graciously provided
by the government.
He said he’d been to St. Louis once,
and Chicago. An in the war, he’d seen
North Africa and France. Then,
LOCAL BOY COMES HOME!
to work in the Arsenal. A surplus of
gunmetal gray paint found its way
to our house. The porch, the kitchen
cabinets—all gray. My first real bed
was a gray army cot.
He’d seen the world. He’d done his duty
and was repaid with a free appendectomy
in a V.A. Hospital. The scar on his belly
looked vicious like a bayonet wound.
He collected monthly disability checks,
monetary tokens of thanks for a body
used, a youth spent.
His soul flows, little by little, down river
past his birthplace, on to that
other shore. All the gravestones look
the same—uniform.