Radio Man
My father was the youngest on the "kiddie cruise."
Two weeks past seventeen.
In the garden he told me,
Flying tiger whiskey, I drank so much, six year sailors called me the flying tiger kid.
They'd hoist me up into bleached coiled net
and deliver my young body
onto the ship's salty air.
Why did I join?
I was lost.
The day my father signed the enlistment papers, he cried.
Do you know what you're doing? He didn't have to say it.
I sailed away.
The night torpedos fell, thousands of stars untangled.
We lived in ration filled life boats
full of death.
The waves a rhythm to our prayers.
How many died ?
Too many
You'll never understand.
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