Phyllis on the Homefront 1943
Thinking of you on your birthday,
and how years ago I sat by your side on the couch
and you read me poems from Longfellow,
how I enjoyed the rhythm
and the bright images I barely understood.
You told me once that as a girl
you’d lay on your bed at your stepfather’s farm
and listen to the drone of planes flying
across Kansas towards war. You were
old enough to understand their direction,
but young enough to play in the fields, to take
your little sister by the hand and walk the berm
along the creek. You were safest
among the black walnuts and the slippery elms,
happiest after you’d tended the chickens,
and moved the fragile eggs into the incubator.
Luckily, your stepfather was part-time
with the railroad, you’d forget the battle for days
until you saw his red pickup barreling up
the road in a torpedo of dust.
*
Al Ortolani is a poetry editor for the Chiron Review. His poems have appeared in Rattle, ONE ART, Pithead Chapel, and Muleskinner Journal. New York Quarterly Books plans to release his most recent poetry collection, American Watercolor, in early 2027.
Terrific poem. That ending!
thank you, Donna
Powerful poem with great ending.