June 16, 2015

pigsy

there's a vaccination scar
on my left shoulder
from when i was
a kid in vietnam
and on the 66 once
i saw an old vet
with the same scar
on his shoulder
       
 an indented circle
       a nub

i didn't know
what answers to give,
so i felt foolish.
i know now that
it was because
i never asked the questions

  my dad drew
a cartoon of a man
on one of the hundreds
of Smith Barney Shearson
paper pads we had in the basement

( i never knew how we got so
         many of those pads and i believe
         we were told, or rather what we told
                ourselves was that someone

   in the family
    got it through
         work

"i used to draw
  a lot as a child
   myself."

he drew a strange
creature that resembled
a man, with two arms
and two legs and clothing
but with a very large snout
almost like a hippo
  or pigsy

the same room,
the game room
the nintendo,
the cold floor

i remember not being very impressed
with my dad's drawing as he grinned
and laughed sheepishly for how rusty he was
having almost drawn nothing but blueprints and boxes
for almost as long as we've been here

No comments:

Post a Comment