Photo Album

Photo Album

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.