Visiting Your Father

The national cemetery sits on Honolulu the way a brain sits on top of a body,
diagrammed into lobes, or lungs—the air is clear, exquisite, diamonds in the
mouth.

Imagine, Mama: in a suspended city of foreign, restless dead, a tattooed man
rides a
lawnmower over cut and cut grass. Thick scent rises like just before rain.

Avoid the northern shore during storms, when the undercurrent blossoms to
drown. Avoid likewise the mirror of earth: perhaps his killing is in me.

Section A, Site 324-I. You believe in honor, in white wars. He left you, did
not come
back for you, laying your head on the grass beside the small white cross.

Call him, the way a poem calls you. Say, parent, I am here. I am here.