June 2016
Laura Foley
lauradaviesfoley@gmail.com
lauradaviesfoley@gmail.com
I live with my partner and our three dogs among the hills of Vermont where I work as a palliative care volunteer in hospitals and sometimes teach yoga or lead writing workshops for people who are dealing with cancer or other life-limiting illnesses. My poems have appeared in many journals including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, DMQ Review, and on A Prairie Home Companion. My fifth collection was just released in January by Headmistress Press. For more information please visit my website: http://www.lauradaviesfoley.com/
Yasumé
Dad made up stories
about a girl named Yasumé.
Yasumé, at ease, in Japanese,
his favorite word—
the Japanese who, that day,
would spare him the bayonet.
Yasumé on a flying carpet,
soaring over oceans
and countries, in sum,
the world,
powered by a word.
First published on A Quiet Courage. org
Tientsin, December 1941
The night before his imprisonment,
after a truly Russian feast,
toasting each course with vodka,
he danced and sang all night.
In the rickshaw at four a.m.,
he wore his Manchurian fur coat
pulled up around his neck
against forty below,
each star frigidly distinct
in foreign constellations.
The chill Gobi Desert wind
blew Japanese sentries in too,
surrounding his house at six a.m.
where he slept like a child
beneath a warm Tibetan carpet--
the man who would be my dad,
who never slept so well again.
First published on A Quiet Courage.org
Not Humming
On the forced march
from Tientsin to Woosung,
our Marines, ordered silent--
no humming or singing
snapped the Japanese,
as the men trudged
a hundred miles to prison.
My father, not humming,
the whole of four winters,
or to my knowledge, since.
first published in Joy Street (Headmistress Press)
Hindsight
I happen after the photo
of my emaciated father
standing on a ship’s deck,
dark hair combed neatly to the right.
He’s just endured four years of war,
POW for the Japanese, starved,
water-boarded.
One feature commands our attention;
my partner names it, his survivor eyes,
just like mine.
First published in Joy Street (Headmistress Press)
Yasumé
Dad made up stories
about a girl named Yasumé.
Yasumé, at ease, in Japanese,
his favorite word—
the Japanese who, that day,
would spare him the bayonet.
Yasumé on a flying carpet,
soaring over oceans
and countries, in sum,
the world,
powered by a word.
First published on A Quiet Courage. org
Tientsin, December 1941
The night before his imprisonment,
after a truly Russian feast,
toasting each course with vodka,
he danced and sang all night.
In the rickshaw at four a.m.,
he wore his Manchurian fur coat
pulled up around his neck
against forty below,
each star frigidly distinct
in foreign constellations.
The chill Gobi Desert wind
blew Japanese sentries in too,
surrounding his house at six a.m.
where he slept like a child
beneath a warm Tibetan carpet--
the man who would be my dad,
who never slept so well again.
First published on A Quiet Courage.org
Not Humming
On the forced march
from Tientsin to Woosung,
our Marines, ordered silent--
no humming or singing
snapped the Japanese,
as the men trudged
a hundred miles to prison.
My father, not humming,
the whole of four winters,
or to my knowledge, since.
first published in Joy Street (Headmistress Press)
Hindsight
I happen after the photo
of my emaciated father
standing on a ship’s deck,
dark hair combed neatly to the right.
He’s just endured four years of war,
POW for the Japanese, starved,
water-boarded.
One feature commands our attention;
my partner names it, his survivor eyes,
just like mine.
First published in Joy Street (Headmistress Press)
Prisoner of War
1941-1945
Bill Foley
1941-1945
Bill Foley
©2016 Laura Foley