Short Story

I woke
and went out
smiling, a small
boy
the sun
a young
man
the rain
I whispered once
or twice
a lover
the sun
a father
the rain
turned for home
old man's knees
the sun
the rain
how sudden
this life

 

Telegram

The bright, hot face
of the great, green Pacific
wore diamonds, when Ed Kantorek's ship
took one torpedo to the bow
and one dead straight into the magazine.
It blew up, rather than went down...
Eddie and his shipmates - gone,
without a ripple.

When his father got the telegram,
he did not want to read it; he knew
what words were waiting there, inside.
He handed it, unopened, to his wife.

It says he's missing, she said;
Missing…
and for a moment.. .no,
he knew.

He took the paper from her hand
and read the words: missing
in action...presumed
dead. He looked down
at the carpet, worn
out, like his life.
It just means there's no body.
He waited for her tears.

But she stood in silence, looking
out the window at a late, gray
Scranton afternoon, staring,
past the calendar, at children
playing, twentv vears ago.­

Don't do this to yourself, he said.
They're telling us our son is dead,
they're telling us
he's never coming home.
She turned from the window,
took the telegram...

It says he's missing, she said.
Missing. ..