Homage to the Skipper
Short and slight you mightied us like kids and in some ways we thus behaved, your smile a beguiling lure, the familiar way we eased around like pets that rub against a master’s leg, but boom when you voiced yourself an angry dude, the lingo smacking our faces, the pain of your displeasure a leopard loose in the space between, and goddamnit I miss you and how we sat out back, the coyotes traipsing along the hedge, your son’s jeep in the driveway, no wheels, axles up on blocks, your Glock 19 in its concealed spot in the small of your back, the coffee not good but good enough, the memories on us like dog bites after a dog fight, muscled memories even if a little hazy and twisted, the scent of gunpowder, the tainted tinfoil taste of fear, the talk of riding the elephant, the unknown tomorrows draped on our shoulders, the talk of looking the tiger in the eye, our hearts hammering as if we were in our twenties and once again those kind of men, bayonets fixed, guts roiled, rifles locked and loaded, seeking the awful moments where death jumps up, and we kill it. Its hideous laugh, we kill, kill it dead.
Ken Rodgers is a poet, writer, and documentary filmmaker who lives in Tucson, Arizona. Ken served in the United States Marine Corps from 1966 through 1969. He survived the seventy-seven day Siege of Khe Sanh in Vietnam in 1968. Ken spends his time in the desert looking for birds.
ISSUED 