Serial Numbers

It’s winter, 1993, less than a month before
the last birthday he’ll ever celebrate. The
America Grandpa knows belongs to two World
Wars and a Great Depression. He’s wearing
a faded blue sweater that hides a body much
like the concentration camp victims he fought to
liberate in younger days, in the army. He coughs
every couple minutes, constantly tryin to
clear his throat as he tells his life story.
Doc says the tumor’s the size of a walnut now,
just a matter of time. Always said 76 years was enough.
He’s pickin at a plastic doily place mat. The woman
he lives with is makin a dinner my grandfather won’t
be able to eat. That’s how it kills he says.
The tumor has sealed off his stomach from his mouth—
he can’t even swallow.

As I sit writing, he continues his story, ‘bout
a 23 year-old kid in 1940, one who would be drafted when
Pearl Harbor wasn’t a household word, or holiday.
A kid who’d get married so he had someone to come
home to after the war. He talks about the man who came
home four years later w/out a brother, the brother who’d been
drafted same time he was. Don’t know whatever happened
to that silver star of Alex’s. Imagine, givin him a medal for doin his job.

He looks at the clock a lot, just watchin that second hand tick
off the next minute. He says that kid had a good life,
pretends he’s not cryin. He’s worked loose an end of
that place mat. We do this every day for a couple months—
he tells more of the story and I write it down.
We both fear what’s goin to happen when he’s finally
told every detail of his life. He says it’s bad not to
have some task you’re tryin to finish. He gets to
the part where the doc tells him he’s got cancer.
Esophogial cancer, and you write that down exact. he says. I do.

One spring afternoon he says the story’s finished.
I look him in the eyes, and this time, see peace.
It’s may 24, 1994, a Tuesday afternoon; it’s hot
out but he’s cold anyway. I wait for him to dismiss
me with his usual see ya tomorrow. same time now.
but he doesn’t say it. I love you grampa, I tell him.
my grandfather smiles, and I leave, knowin where
the next place I’ll see him is. Next to my grandmother,
where he’s been waitin to be for 20 years now. We bury
him as he wanted to be remembered, not as a cancer victim,

Sergeant T-4, 2nd Infantry,
U.S. Army, WWII, Salute!

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