Flying Through World War I Poem by Julie Suk

His plane was scarcely more than canvas
stretched across board.
Gunned down by a German Fokker onto no-man's land,
my father crawled under cross-fire to a crater
and sprawled in on the dead.

Only once did he mention the maggots and stench
in a world that slammed up too soon.

That night, between the sizzle of flares,
A Yank pulled him back into a trench and left
before the swapping of names.

Long after I came and went my ways, a friend of his
passed through town, bringing with him an army pal.
Buddy, old buddy, war tales told until what do you know -
true I swear true - they found it was the stranger
who'd rescued my father.

Crying, they embraced - life is so sweet
when death is on leave.

By spring a tumor invaded my father's brain,
taking him out, along with his wish to float
once just once again with the noiseless clouds.

I'm left replaying those summer nights
we sat on the stoop, bull-bats diving overhead,
cicadas puncturing the quiet.

See, he pointed, there - there! scorpion,
fish, ram and lyre, wheeling across a sky
threatened by hunter and bear.

Hiding my face on his arm, it was hard to connect
myth with the lap I nestled in.

And still no clue
from a heaven seemingly preoccupied.

Tracers that stutter around us
briefly illuminate our lives,

what I forgot to say, what I forgot to give
to the living, bringing me down to a fragment
of you, my derring-do father who flew.