Letter From My Father the General by David Spicer

I don’t mean to intrude, the courier interrupted

us at prayer in the Baptist shack with no

stained-glass windows and too many cobwebs

and dust bunnies, but I have a letter from your

father the general. Outside, the sleet broke

the sky and then melted. She handed me the letter

and left, the schoolgirls, veterans, and cowboys

hushed. I dismissed choir practice with a Bless you

and have a good summer, climbing the stairs

to my room. Poured champagne and ate a banana 

after I pulled the letter from my pocket,

reading it by lantern light. Son, it began, 

I know you’ve regarded me as superhuman,

and think I’ve shunned you for choosing

the ministry instead of genetics or geology.

You’ve conquered icebergs with more

grace than I have with massacres

and slaughters from a government plane.

My victims’ blood seeps from my heart

to the boots that lackeys have licked. 

But I’ve learned, as I scrape through this

last day toward death and damnation,

that the loveliest reality I’ve known

is an orchard of cherry trees. 

May you blossom.

David Spicer has poems in Chiron Review, Alcatraz, Gargoyle, Easy Street, Third Wednesday, Reed Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, Midnight Lane Boutique, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He's author of Everybody Has a Story and five chapbooks, his latest chapbook From the Limbs of a Pear Tree, from Flutter Press.