Stitches
See those faint scars
on my little finger –
I was eleven, and
those were the first
stitches I ever had.
I had cut my hand,
and all the blood
alarmed my father,
a military man who usually
hid his emotions.
In the base ER, when they
started to sew up
the cut, my father
(who had been to war)
had to turn his face away.
Suddenly I understood
the way he loved me.
A History of Pilot Error
The first one goes down
in a midair over the sea.
They won’t find
so much as a ring or a bone.
His wingman will vomit into his mask
and fly back to the base alone.
Then the young man who defies
all expectation,
with matter-of-fact precision flies
straight into the face of a mountain,
who just didn’t pull up
on a practice bombing run.
And the ensign whose fighter
got a cold cat shot – those tons
of metal sliding past the edge
of the gray deck into the gray sea.
They found him curled in the ‘chute,
his arms in the shroud lines,
the way a man wraps his hands
in a woman’s hair.
On the carrier one year,
an F-4 struck the ramp, exploding
into a flying scythe.
Ten feet away, my husband saw
a sheared-off foot
still laced up in its boot.
His clothes were soaked with gasoline and blood.
But afterwards, they say:
He was a good stick, but he shouldn’t have:
flown below minimums,
stalled at that altitude,
lost his control.
All of them believing in
their own quick reflexes, saying,
Don’t worry, baby, I’m no hero.
If it went uncontrollable,
I’d get out fast.
Sharon Hoffmann is a writer based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. Publications include The Hooghly Review, New York Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Alice Walker: Critical Perspectives (Harvard University Press), Paddler Press, South Florida Poetry Journal, Letters, Wild Roof, Sho, and other magazines. Awards include fellowships from Atlantic Center for the Arts and Florida’s Division of Cultural Affairs, two Pushcart nominations and a nomination for Best Spiritual Literature.
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