Dear Dad: Poem by Jon Frankel

http://lastbender.com/poetry/dear-dad/">DEAR DAD

by Jon Frankel

Dear Dad
I understand the second world war was tough.
You were young and didn’t look back until old age.
The petrified the ossified the classified the satisfied
Emerged in a room full of youths and women when you held forth
From memory’s abandoned pulpit before a convocation of crows
The leaves of the trees bleached white, afraid of kamikazes.
I have never touched a headless corpse
Never seen an airplane cartwheel down the deck.
Cerise father, in cardinal coats, law giver in galoshes
I write to find a blank. I can’t conjure what’s not there.
You know the old joke? With all this shit
There must be a pony. Dear Dad, it ended well, given how it began.