Shiny as wax, the cracked veneer Scotch-taped 

and brittle.  I can't bring my father back. 

Legs crossed, he sits there brash 



with a private's stripe, a world away 

from the war they would ship him to 

within days.  Cannons flank his face 



and banners above him like the flag 

my mother kept on the mantel, folded tight, 

white stars sharp-pointed on a field of blue. 



I remember his fists, the iron he pounded, 

five-pound hammer ringing steel, 

the frame he made for a sled that winter 



before the war.  I remember the rope in his fist 

around my chest, his other fist 

shoving the snow, and downhill we dived, 



his boots by my boots on the tongue, 

pines whishing by, ice in my eyes, blinking 

and squealing.  I remember the troop train, 



steam billowing like a smoke screen. 

I remember wrecking the sled weeks later 

and pounding to beat the iron flat, 



but it stayed there bent 

and stacked in the barn by the anvil, 

and I can't bring him back.