The First Time I Drank With My Father
Posted: 08 Jun 2018, 00:00
Nurses wash you with long hair
trailing over ribs and rigging,
faint blue outline
of a Spanish tri-master
on custard colored skin.
In the Liberation of '44
you sailed the Champs Ellysees
with the swagger of conquest.
Women jostled to be first
to touch your face,
kiss your hand,
litter your path with flowers.
Now you've pissed yourself again.
I give my name to the night clerk,
fresh bed clothes to orderlies.
I side-step through piles
of soiled linen.
The fetid air masks
two shots and a beer
it takes just to be the last
of your sons to come.
I have the combat boots
You bought me as a kid,
black as a German night.
I place them under your bed
and know I'll never come again.
trailing over ribs and rigging,
faint blue outline
of a Spanish tri-master
on custard colored skin.
In the Liberation of '44
you sailed the Champs Ellysees
with the swagger of conquest.
Women jostled to be first
to touch your face,
kiss your hand,
litter your path with flowers.
Now you've pissed yourself again.
I give my name to the night clerk,
fresh bed clothes to orderlies.
I side-step through piles
of soiled linen.
The fetid air masks
two shots and a beer
it takes just to be the last
of your sons to come.
I have the combat boots
You bought me as a kid,
black as a German night.
I place them under your bed
and know I'll never come again.