Sunday, September 4, 2011

Our Dad's Army Jacket


falls from your kid shoulders. He says he was a correspondent,

which means writer, which means


he didn’t fight. His advice:

“Words are weapons, arm yourselves”, so you read

the names of tress (now streets) as I read the stitches

unraveling the patch of his name, a ghost

with phantom limbs so heavy they sink

in the ocean lapping our front door.

Later the water spits his jacket on the sidewalk,


one long thread that you stretch over your bones

in a limping hug , arming yourself.


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