I arrived and started drinking
at your house around seven pm.
Your wife, Shiela prepared a
regular household meal of meatloaf,
a side of potatoes, and a salad
with Itallian dressing.
The four children crawled up on their seats,
chattering about
typical
asinine,
childish
things.
I have no children, so to say typical is merely a guess.
I brought your wife a present,
wrapped in burgandy paper.
A picture frame with a picture
of you and I standing on a hilltop in Korea.
You could still see smoke in the valley below.
We dined for an hour or so,
it doesn't really matter.
Shiela put your children to bed,
and you left her and I
in the living room for twenty minutes
while you tucked them in,
read them stories,
did whatever fatherly duties you felt you should.
Her and I talked about the television,
how you needed to fix it because
only channels one through eighteen
actually worked,
the rest came in all scrambled.
She stole off to clean up
and that's when I left the
governmental sealed letter of deployment
in your jacket, which you had draped
over your chair in the dining room.
Two weeks to report to the front lines.
I assume you'll appreciate the privacy
with which I delivered it to you.
While you were upstairs and your wife was in the kitchen, I saw myself out.