[brigits_flame entry] // Richard's Empty Placemat
Richard’s Empty Placemat
“Mom, why haven’t we set -”
The ice crackles as I stiffen, as I turn to the table
and suddenly realize my mistake. I never learn.
His corner collects fine filigree,
the dust of old memories. Traced into the wood:
our amiable childhood, our eventual slow, steady drift apart,
the warmth of his shirt as I fisted it in my hands and said,
“I’ll write you, I promise.”
It’s warmth that the HP DeskJet screen tone lacks while I watch him
break bread with his fingers, eyelashes lowered. He’s one of them now -
cropped, starch-white, voluntarily suffering
the barks and swears of a drill sergeant, the sweat and blood shed
by barbed-wire fences, by ten-foot high brick walls.
Basic training, combat, the threat of a “nine-meter steel-eating termite”
chewing through the wing of an airplane -
these are the things my grandfather carried, back straight, face set,
jaw clenched with the certainty of determination.
He passed that weight onto Richard, this fascination,
this dream at once a yin-yang token of pain and reward he’d trade
to soar above the skies.
And now he gets to live it, and in doing so he passes onto us
the compounded, greatest weight of them all -
the uncertainty of the future, the possibility of loss;
the strength to shut my eyes and fight back tears as I realize, again,
that Richard’s not coming home for dinner.
Concrit is appreciated, but please be gentle - I think I already know which parts need work.