Our Dad

He never talked about
the jungle erupting
as they flew in formation;
how he calculated vectors
for dropping a smoke bomb,
its sinewy plume marking
some soldier’s longitude
and latitude; how the chopper
descended into fog;
how men swung on ladders
and fell sometimes,
back down to earth;
he never said a word
till you slipped from coma
to death, my little sister,
who would have regarded tenderly
how he stumbled, reaching
for my suitcase, vodka sweetening
his breath. Those two weeks
were worse than a year
in Vietnam, he finally said.