Calvin

I remember the hardwood floors
in my grandmother's small and narrow
and often dark home.

The windows were always curtained
and the light I remember
came by way of lamps.

And I remember too, a very small hallway
with a small wooden table and
a petite wooden chair, one male
the other female, they way they fit
one into the other.

On that small table, in that dark hallway
sat a black phone, the kind you dialed
with your index finger, turning circles
delighting at the rotational heft
and the sound of mechanical friction
a hypnotizing exercise

dialing in circles
like a dance of the finger
on a party line
with those, to a small boy,
gigantic ear cups
like an army walkie-talkie.

And I remember holding that phone
alone. The house empty. My uncle
in Nam. My uncle that laughed and smiled
and wrestled with me on the hardwood floor,
locking me in his legs with his crew-cut
hair and khaki pants. That was before.

He looked like a movie star and moved with an energy
and joy for life that I never saw in my own father.
He told stories and jokes, and like a river,
was always moving, living, in love with life
in the contagious way that smiles are contagious.

I remember the energy, the smiles, paging through
his old army yearbooks, of young men in boot camp
pounding each other with these strange pillow-ended
poles, looking all the same with lithe bodies and
stylish buzzed hair.

I remember sitting in that wooden chair
in that dark hallway
holding that heavy receiver
wishing he were here
and not there
and sometimes, as young boys do,
wishing I was there
not knowing what there meant
or would mean.

Calvin returned from his first tour.
Told stories into the night on the back porch
to the men, my grandfather, father and me.
He seemed a little older. A little different.
And in days, he left again for a second tour.
Said he had to go, which I thought meant
he had no choice.

He never came back, not the uncle I knew
at least. The days of wrestling on the floor
were to remain memories and the days of joy
I remember so clearly were replaced with
days at bars and nights in jail. He still laughed,
although his laughter had an edge like a knife
that only whiskey could dull.

Some gave all in sacrifice to our freedom
to the call of country right or wrong. Calvin
did too. Not with his name in the paper, which
I think would have been easier to take.