Robert Hedin

I could fix the leaky pipe Under the sink, or wander over And bother Jerry who’s lost

I spent the winter my father died down in the basement, under the calm surface of the floorboards, hundreds of little plastic parts spread out like debris on the table. And for months while the snow fell and my father sat in the big chair by the Philco, dying, I worked my way up deck by deck, story by story, from steerage to first class, until at last it was done, stacks, deck chairs, all the delicate rigging. And there it loomed, a blazing city of the dead. Then painted the gaping hole at the waterline and placed my father at the railings, my mother in a lifeboat pulling away from the wreckage.

Of all the people in the mornings at the mall, it’s the old liberators I like best, those veterans of the Bulge, Anzio, or Monte Cassino I see lost in Automotive or back in Home Repair, bored among the paints and power tools. Or the really old ones, the ones who are going fast, who keep dozing off in the little orchards of shade under the distant skylights. All around, from one bright rack to another, their wives stride big as generals, their handbags bulging like ripe fruit. They are almost all gone now, and with them they are taking the flak and fire storms, the names of the old bombing runs. Each day a little more of their memory goes out, darkens the way a house darkens, its rooms quietly filling with evening, until nothing but the wind lifts the lace curtains, the wind bearing through the empty rooms the rich far off scent of gardens where just now, this morning, light is falling on the wild philodendrons.

She kept them high on the top shelf, In boxes big as drums— Bright, crescent-shaped boats With little fishnets dangling down— And wore them with her best dress To teas, coffee parties, department stores. What a lovely catch, my father used to say, Watching her sail off into the afternoon waters.