Flatfish

The last hours of night are the coldest and the worst

If you have guard duty.  That chill goes right through you,

When your insides turn into gull-shattered clams if you're awake.

Even in Arizona, in the desert, it can feel like that.

Soldiers have told me this, men who have felt the cold of duty

Even when there was no threat, no danger of being overtaken or undone.

Desert watches taught Dad about silence and waking.  No enemy came.

I awake during one of those coldest hours every day.  I sit in the

Crow's nest I have made of the kitchen and look out the window

To the blank sea and watch it roll back as the great,

Golden ship, starboard, glides into dawn and drowns night.

In its yellow wake before it goes up in pink flames, I see me and Dad

After he had tapped my door long before he had to be up for work

Or I, who worked nights in a ball-bearing factory, had to be up at all.

We went down to the Sound to flat fish in the

Large-dropped, light-scattered rain of just before dawn and watch Midas

Enlighten our world in folds of gold among the gray, mighty waves of the

Sky that dripped light into the thickness of Sound water.  We were

Quiet and warm with sweet coffee as we minded our rods from under

The yellow plastic of the rain gear that had once

Belonged to the phone company and now smelled of low tide.

Dad had me bury our catch in the back garden for the tomatoes.

There was no time for him to clean them after our return, when 

He had to get ready for work.  I didn't mind

Though I never could stand to see an animal die.

Clean inside a work shirt, he shouted good-bye 

Minutes after our return.  

I shouted back love you, Dad, in the brightening air

As I dug in the cool sand with my spade.

Our watch had passed.

Looking for my Grandmother's notes on the family tree, I found myself again looking through papers my Dad kept in his "SANDY JR." file.  This poem was there with my note, "Dad, I sent this to Aunt Janet a while ago.  It was about our little trip, which I never forgot.  It was a wonderful time.  Love, Sandy Jr."