Gary Dop

In Normandy, at Point Du Hoc, where some Rangers died, Dad pointed to an old man 20 feet closer to the edge than us, asking if I could see the medal the man held like a rosary. As we approached the cliff the man’s swearing, each bulleted syllable, sifted back toward us in the ocean wind. I turned away, but my shoulder was held still by my father’s hand, and I looked up at him as he looked at the man.

I lift your body to the boat before you drown or choke or slip too far beneath.  I didn’t think—just jumped, just did what I did like the physics that flung you in.  My hands clutch under year-old arms, between your life jacket and your bobbing frame, pushing you, like a fountain cherub, up and out. I’m fooled by the warmth pulsing from the gash on my thigh, sliced wide and clean by an errant screw on the stern. No pain.  My legs kick out blood below. My arms strain against our deaths to hold you up as I lift you, crying, reaching, to the boat.