Hanoi, Vietnam
November 1995

Your father was always at your games,
screaming at the umpires,
or at you when you couldn't turn a double play.
He had been a second baseman too.
I wondered if he embarrassed you.
Probably not.
You were a lot like your father:
loud, chippy, and swaggering.
The only fans you two had were each other.

When I heard you enlisted,
volunteered for airborne and Vietnam,
I was not surprised.
When I learned you were killed
on Hamburger Hill,
I wondered if your father screamed at Nixon.

Today I am in the capital city of the country
we could not defeat,
and I am thinking about you
booting a grounder behind the bag,
your father standing in the bleachers screaming;
and about you
dead on that horrible hill,
and your father
old, alone,

and silent.

—EFQ

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