Ace, and: Modigliani's Girls, and: Because You Were Mine, and: Depression Glass, and: Learning Language

Ace for Amy

It's hard to admitthe medals and eighteenoak leaf clustersyou played with as children,pinning them on, strutting about,were so importantto have brought all thosestrangers to the funeral,standing at the back, seriousand at attention. But harderto face the fact that your father,grown too small for his skinand then for his box,who at the end you had tohelp with his buttons, oncewhen the world was youngerknew, before you were born,days bigger than yours or minewould ever be. That boomerangsmile. That cocked hat.

But I wonder, my friend—fourth child of the fourand mirror imageof the Tennessee girlhe came home tight-lipped to—if the hardestthought is that at the endhis last thought was notof you or home but that dayat Arnhem Bridge when he of the fighting 78th climbedabove the flak, banked, tookaim, then like the screamingeagle the 78th was named for,slanted down, his P-47shuddering around him—the metal body his heartwas the heart of glancing offthe rungs of splintering airwhining with Messerschmitts.And he, reduced to the steelthumb of perfection hewas trained for, pushingthat red button, pushingpushing beyond retaliationor choice until he became,at twenty-two years old, agentand deliverer—freefrom death because hewas death—before it was overand he fell through to Tennesseeand the innocent flesh that made you.

Oh, child who grieves,maybe at the end,flying on instrumentsthrough a morphine cloud,he saw his old luck come back—Queen of Bluff, sly-eyedin red satin—slow playingthe spades of her royal flushto raise the pot beforescooping up the prize: one moreace to tuck up her sleeve,one more boy to cradle in her arms,rocking sleep and a forgiveness.

If his last thoughtwasn't of you—youwho held his hand in thatcold hospital room—let it befor the one who kept him alivefor your making, that Septemberafternoon at Arnhem Bridge,that slaughter, that tactical mistake.

Modigliani's Girls

It isn't their facesthat draw us in, but his outlinesstraining to hold them, for who'd buy beautywithout a cage to put it in. Think escapeand half the world burns down.

But who is this, face tippedto one side and the coppery hair—the outline delicate as an exploring finger.Toujours amour or one moreplucked flower too heavy for her neck?Why else would he twist her mouth like that,paint her eyes pupil-less and all green iris:two upholstery tacks pinning her down.

Still, how could he let that flesh tonego—Jeanne Hébuterne, the tawny slipof low sun that lit up his rooms.Another doomed Puccini girl drivento gather up her skirts and her eight-month pregnancy, and at twenty-one years oldwalk backward through a fifth-floor window.No outline to hold her now that the handthat painted it lay white and slack on the sheets.

You can almost hear the music.

Because You Were Mine

One day in the home, my fatherwas struck by a bolt of philosophy—split down the middle to reveal the lasttwo bits of his reason. Ninety yearsin shadow and all at once at the bottomof the canyon, the Colorado glints in the sun.

Poor Daddy, turning on his last spit,wearing diapers and gumming peas.

He wheeled his chair in close, kneeto my knee touching, took the handlast held when I was five. All meannessgone, barbed wire down between us.The blood-shot eyes, for once, not racing,looking for a doorway out, but latching onto mine as if he saw—at last—the constantknown as daughter he'd been looking for.

Now, ten years have passed since that dayand...