[Susan d.S.]

In World War Two my father served in Sicily
and North Africa. A captain and flight surgeon,
his job was to cut men out of fallen planes
and piece them back together again, not much fun,

he said, all of that daily commerce with the dead.
He showed his faded sepia albums one day,
old photos of him and a lady “holding up”
Mt. Etna’s smoke; so unlike my Dad to clown or play.

Her name was Kate. Her curls had once been red, he said,
faded now to olive-brown. A pretty nurse.
Said he thought life with her might have been pleasant,
but in all the photos her face was cut out; worse,

sixty years in Dad’s mind had made her prettier yet.
I think my Mom, armed with scissors, had hoped he’d forget.