To End All Wars
On Bastille Day 1987, my grandfather and I stood on a bridge near the Place Vendome to watch the parade. Herbert was 90 years old, a World War I veteran proudly wearing his Rainbow Division hat. Wherever we went, people pointed, smiled, and came up to shake his hand.
when I enlisted
I wanted so badly
to be brave
I had a false
notion of patriotism
like all of us had
We retraced his route—Fere-en-Tardenois, where he marked his 21st birthday by taking a water bucket to the woods and delousing himself; the basilica town of L’Epine, where he was stationed before the Second Battle of the Marne; the battlefield, where he dug trenches, cut barbed wire on enemy fortifications, and stood gas guard while the shells rained down.
we learned to live
in mud and slime
half-frozen
in our canvas clothes
half-starved
scrounging cabbages
As guest of honor at the annual battle monument ceremony, Herbert helped place the Rainbow Division wreath. A full mass and an afternoon banquet for 600 were followed by champagne in Sommepy, a village rebuilt with American aid.
Still visible, looking almost like natural indentations in the rolling countryside—trenches covered with grass.
to bury men every day
the war was fought
to end all wars
it didn’t work
and I regret that
Speechless
After they sell the chicken ranch, my grandparents move to Sedona, Arizona. This is Ina’s doing—at last, she plans to paint and sculpt. Their new home is barely finished when she suffers the massive stroke that makes her an invalid.
reduced to color
by number
she almost
always stays
inside the lines
Living far away, I see her rarely—but when I do, she grips my hand in her good hand, repeating over and over the only syllables she can say—“oh no nee no nee no.” She is delighted, and so am I.
mind readers
we talk at length
me with words
she signaling
with her eyes
Once I bring my first husband along. Ina’s face speaks volumes, and I know exactly what she means. “Don’t worry, Grandma, it’s OK, he’s a good guy,” I reassure her. She isn’t convinced. And of course, she’s right.
Later I learn that Grandpa, far from being the martyred caregiver, has two girlfriends—and gifted one of them a wedding ring.
telling all
the breeze through
her window
meets the rise and fall
of her breath
To Have and To Hold
When I’m too young to know better, I ask my mom, how come you and dad never celebrate your wedding anniversary? She doesn’t answer, her face set in stone.
dinner table
their knives
slice the silence
Years pass, and I wonder why two people who make each other so miserable are still together. Then my dad buys some land and spends most of his time in the middle of nowhere.
gone feral
nursing their hurts
in separate dens
Their 60th anniversary comes and goes without mention. Later, my mom tells me that they stopped at a diner in a ghost town for pie.
bittersweet
her lemon meringue
his apple a la mode
My dad sells the ranch, and they spend their last years together in a retirement community, as though a lifetime of backstabbing never happened.
farewell to arms
side by side
in the columbarium