Armada

sometimes I wonder what my grandfather saw on that battleship,

port cities doused in napalm

Saigon set on fire

he was just an electrical engineer,

my mother says

he never saw combat

what did you see out there?

when I close my eyes hard enough,

I can picture myself standing beside him

watching people die

along the shoreline

you’ve got two options, son: join the army or the navy

so he shipped out

(he reads Catch-22 in bootcamp but I don’t know it til he wanders into my

house

while I’m reading it on the couch)

there’s things he’ll never say

(is he scared in the clear light of day?)

i’m old enough to know he’s no hero

i’m also old enough to know not to bring up Vietnam or the words bomb or sarong

(i learn this when I am ten and sitting on the backporch waiting for him to stop screaming the house

down

over a

crossword)

what did you see out there?

I see old photos of him sometimes,

hidden in the wallpapered corners of my mother’s dresser

holding my grandmother (and all her rage is in my mother now)

there ain’t no light in his eyes

and i wonder where it died