She went to work in 1943
in California shipyards by the bay.
The Navy steel sang like the memory
of her young husband, half the world away.
But ringing hulls could not quiet the dreams
of ships like those she worked on all ablaze:
the whine of Zeros over sailors' screams,
the enemy sun ringed in blood-red rays.
Later, she'd have believed she'd seen it all
with sixty years between her and that shore;
till Tuesday, when she watched the Towers fall,
and smoke blacked out the sun like clouds of war.
The tears and fire and blood that she saw then,
she'd hoped she'd never live to see again.
3 comments:
For my grandmother.
Really nice, Scott.
That's hard-hitting and lovely at the same time, Scott. Bravo.
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