The crooked answer:

Showing me his dusty green duffel filled with
War artifacts—a white corpsman’s tunic
Stained with brown blood, weirdly kept and
Cherished, a gas mask he demonstrated
Still fit his head perfectly, his grungy left boot
With a hole in the toe. He said,
“That’s a bayonet hole!” And smiled
Down at the grunge. I wasn’t aware Charlie
Used bayonets, but Vietnam had been a
French colony, so…

The straight answers:

At the video store—“Dad,
Let’s get Good Morning Vietnam.”
No. “Why?” That’s not a time
I like to remember.

At the video store another day—
“Let’s get 9-5” Jane Fonda in blue
In the cover ensemble. He ripped
The video out of my hands, slammed
It on the floor and stomped her face.
That’s what we do with that.
The clerk and my 12 year old self
Bit our lips and looked
At something else.

With my mother—
divorced from him for a decade
“You mean you don’t know
what Jane Fonda DID?”

And later—“That rat!
Bayonet hole my ass! He
Had a bunch of beer one day and
Decided to chop down a volunteer
Palm in the backyard. The axe went
Through his boot. He nearly
Lost his stupid drunk toe!”

And this, often—two in the morning
Up for a glass of water, Dad
In the TV room eating all the
Strawberry ice cream again
Fast in gargantuan spoonfuls
Second pack of smokes that day
Slouched in the harvest god 70s
Recliner, laughing at M.A.S.H.
Closing his eyes at the helicopters.

-M. Ashley