Taji, Iraq: 2004

In the autumn, stories fall. My father grins, loose and 

toothy, standing as he does beneath early winter trees

in the backyard of my youth, an old red rake clasped

in his hands. Tell me a story I say, as he rubs the shadow

of a beard on his face. This one time he starts, his eyes

alight with the memory of his own experience, and I kick

blazing leaves, my face the color of apples, his voice

crushed pine—this one time, he says, my buddy

punk. My father drinks coffee in our kitchen, smoothing

calloused hands across a table top he finished

years ago. The first time he returned he gave to me 

a set of silver dog tags stamped: KOONTZ, DAVID A,

O POS, PROTESTANT. I was nine and did not know 

the meaning of O POS or God or why my father 

stood among men wearing clothes the color

of dull trees, haircuts, foreheads like polished boxes,

boots with heels to crush bone. He left for the desert—

returned—cursing smoking carefully considering

the garage doors of steel standing so stoically

as he hurled his dust beige boots then sank, his hands

holding his head, cocooning himself on the floor. My mother 

cried. Later I asked for a story. Instead, he dropped St. Michael 

into my pink palm—silver, tethered to a chain, here you go,

a Saint to protect you. He drank black liquid, straight up,

two sugars and a stir of the spoon. Once more he placed 

a fresh set round his neck in the summer of my fifteenth year:

KOONTZ, DAVID A, O POS, PROTESTANT, and left 

for the sands of Falahat. He’d call, and across the line

the great roaring rush of a sandstorm, HELLO MY SWEET 

YOUR SISTER AND—it was that year in biology 

I finally understood O POS. He returned home twelve months 

later, to trade in his boots for moccasins the color 

of cinnamon bark. Now, on crisp leaf mornings, he conjures 

flames on the bricks of our fireplace, stacks wood 

as he whistles to the black Lab running, before 

coming in, wrapping his arms around my mother

where she stands with her wrists deep in a sink

of hot suds—his hands follow hers into rich 

warm water and I think of all that humans can do.

On the screen we watch a soldier shoot a civilian

in the bombed out shell of a broken down street—I watch

his eyes, his face, and cannot comprehend what I 

see there. My father sighs, pulls a smoke from his lips 

and says there was that time you know when I got real pissed

and he drags the air in. He turns, looks at cherry trees unfurling

in the backyard where we stand and tell our stories.

And I wear his name around my neck.