Fragmentation

Centuries before Quang Tri
and the frag that blew
my father's hand apart
a British officer,
Henry Shrapnel,
perfected his legacy
of metal shards in a shell
a Spanish pomegranate
to flush men from underbrush
expose them to the jagged bloom
of indirect fire
plant the seed of the napalm tree.

After two decades
buried in my father's flesh—
buried but quite
alive,
the welts
on my brother's thighs,
the pinning of my sister
to the wall
dangled
above the floor
as the leather belt-loop
named and claimed
the Satan perceived
to writhe within her soul,
the rib kicks
for playing
on a Sunday afternoon
above the volume of a whisper,
yes,
quite alive,
fed well
on weekly affirmations
of Hell—
the Viet Cong grenade
awakened
mushrooming from his thumb-pad
a golf-ball sized
agaricus bisporus
sprouting for months
heated
taut
until he made an incision
in the thickened leathery skin
with an Old-Timer blade
we'd given him one Father's Day—

He used to play an accordion
after we lay agonized in bed,
after the nightly assurances
from mother, He does
he does. I know he doesn't
show it, but
pacing the back-porch
in darkness
his tenor voice
so tense in daylight
become a kind of weeping,
a self-relevatory
prayer And can it be
that thou

And once
at prayer-meeting
as we knelt
around the altar,
knees tingling with sleep,
peeking,
foreheads conforming to the wooden rail
as our fingers traced
the utilitarian shape
of Free Methodism,
inhaling Murphy's Oil Soap,
listening to Kent
Lattimer
punctuate the sonorous
rhythm of Clark Snyder's prayer
with Yes, Lord,
Yes, Lord
my father erupted,
stalking behind us,
wailing as he read
one of David's laments,
not a sound
from any of the dear old ladies,
we children
scarcely breathing,
only his voice
unlike it had ever been before
unlike it would ever be again
thundering in the sanctuary
pouring his self-loathing
out on the air
like an explosive volcano,
the only other sound
Yes, Lord
and the hushed movement of heated blood
in my neck,
trying to catch
a glimpse of my mother's
face.

—Dense as toothpaste
he squeezed the putrid cream,
until the growth was empty
retaining its shape
rattling when he shook his hand
opening the sphere
for the shrapnel inside,
blinking in slow comprehension,
Elly, come see,
Henry's Improved Method of Wounding,
carried all that long while.

Carried still.

I saw it at my sister's house
last summer.
I saw it
last week
sliding down
my daughter's
cheek.

12-18-2012 (begun early November)