Sixty-four years ago my mother and father got engaged

 

There is no need to know the date.

April is enough.

Two years later, my mother lay

alone and I was born and my father

lay on his cot in Belgium, or was it

France. No, he was being shipped

to the Philippines, lying in a hammock,

sick.

 

We are all standing in line.

The spaces between us

like those between these words.

 

When he came home, I was two. I

pointed at him and said, “Dada.”

 

April’s not that cruel. There are

daffodils. Pansies’ antique blooms

hold through any cold.

 

The line we are in moves forward.

It is generous to receive a handout:

bread, a hat, even shoes or a book.

 

Then, he took her hand, slipped a ring

on to her finger. It was quiet. She told me.

There was a breeze; in April

there is always a breeze. There was also

a war. Two months later, she began reading

the front page, began listening to the radio.

 

 

                    (stanza break)

 

It’s difficult to know anyone else in a line

except the persons behind and in front of you.

 

Today she keeps a vase of dried milkweed pods

and gray-brown grasses on her kitchen table.

 

There are many lines. Some are very long.

Sometimes we even forget we are standing there.

Then a tap on the shoulder and a nod to move ahead.

 

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