WHEN LINDA WOULDN'T ELOPE
You think it's tough, my brother scoffed,
rolling his long cigar as if he invented fire.
Wait till you're married. He puffed,
eyes squinted shut, as if that settled it.
I was sixteen and ready for the Marines,
who promised I'd look like that guy with the sword,
on the poster. My brother had fought on Guam
and Corregidor when Marines took it back.
He'd pass for my father, if he'd sign.
Stay with the team, he said. Kick butt,
get tough. Ask me when you're eighteen.
He breathed smoke sideways out his mouth.
But I wouldn't need him at eighteen,
could sign my name and swear my life away.
Linda would still be gone, off to college
or showered with flowers in a chapel,
some baby's mother or maybe with two
or three more brats, living with some
dull jerk or slick-haired salesman
in a duplex, already getting fat.
¤ ¤ ¤
OLD VETS SMOKING AT CHURCH
Thugs beat my brother bloody before the war.
Island hopping with MacArthur toward Japan,
he killed a dozen men or more, maybe hundreds.
In high school, he had dated a woman he worked with.
Sixteen, he swore he didn't know she was twenty
and married. I saw her once, a car hop,
a blonde on roller skates, flirting and chewing gum.
Her father and dapper husband and buddies
hauled him off to the alley and kicked him,
beat him with fists, with chains.
Back from the war, he still wore the scars,
the broken nose. He caught me once by his trunk
and shut it, his attic dusty and dark,
packed with knives and medals, dried ears
and flags, stiff patches ripped from uniforms,
some bloody like black glue. I see him often
on the porch at church, smoking with other vets
during sermons, their wives and children inside
shouting Amen or passing notes and giggling,
the big boys tossing their hair and chewing gum,
cutting their eyes at girls in mini-skirts.
¤ ¤ ¤
GRANDMAMA MOOSE'S APRON
Grandmama Moose hugged us hard
to her bakery apron, turning us all
into ghosts, white flour on our cheeks
and noses. Her belly was wide
and deeper than pillows, our turn
to be lucky and buried, breathing yeast
and flour that made the bread dough rise.
When her knuckles dug us closer and squeezed,
her tummy gurgled and squealed, and we giggled
as if tickled. Mama Moose stacked cabinets
with brownies and gingerbread and pies
never cold and not too hot, just right for snacks
and bedtime. No cane, no rocking chair,
so we thought she'd be there forever.
When we asked how old she was, she laughed.
Mama Moose was a giant at five feet,
always there with pastries and apron hugs
until one month we found her down
in a half-closed casket of satin,
that round face almost hers, but white
and puffy like bread dough rolled in flour.
