“Retrospective”

–

by Michelle DeRose

–

One Sunday in June 2017
a brim against the mid-day sun
to protect his patchy skin
my father described that year’s ritual.
Always a faithful scribe
each Sunday he reread the epistle
sent fifty years before to his wife
and two kids from his tent in Vietnam
where he treated snakebites and inoculated
children, severed limbs, sutured
wounds, extracted bullets, and assigned time
of death until, at week’s end, his thoughts
and time turned spouse-ward, to ask
if the five year-old corrected his backward
6 and b yet, if the 2-year-old still trailed
a blanket behind her everywhere,
willing the flimsy blue sheet into one
for himself, to scroll along the silky edge
and find the spot that smelled most like home.

–

–

–

–

Michelle DeRose lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she teaches creative writing and world, Irish, and African-American literature. Her poetry has appeared in various literary magazines and sites, including ONTHEBUS, Journal of Poetry Therapy, and Sulphur River Literary Review. Her father served as company commander of the 37th Medical in Vietnam in 1967-68, and both she and her son interviewed him about his Vietnam experiences for high school research projects, thirty years apart. Each Sunday night from June 2017 to June 2018, her father re-read the letter he sent home to his wife fifty years prior. All three generations are looking back and considering how his wartime experiences have shaped their family.

–

–

–

–