Marines Can Be Poems

The Irish: a race of people known for drinking and fighting


You salty old dog.
Cursing and swearing and brawling and rumbling.
Never once letting old age or infirmity
slow you down.

I bet no one suspects
you are a poem.

In that very first dance class
I was too shy
to dance with the “Big Girls.”
(I was only two).
You took the class with me
and became my shuffle ball-changing hero.

You faithfully attended
all those Bobby Sox games
only to watch me
do cartwheels in right field.

You never got over the one game you missed,
the one where I hit
the game-winning
grand slam.

I cried to you in high school
about my unwavering unpopularity with boys.
You told me my day would come.

You love it when I ask your advice
and tell you
to “pretend you’re a man”
not my Dad.

When my life unraveled
and my career derailed
and my Mama became ill,
you silently urged me,
willed me
to feel better.


Not knowing how to help,
you wordlessly picked up the pieces
that incessantly kept falling.

When your wife of 46 years died
it was my duty was to take care of you.
You said “No.”
My duty
was to finally find
my own place
in this world.

You said you’d be fine.
And you packed me up
and you moved to me my home
1,000 miles away.

You made it OK to leave
the only life I’d ever known
by telling me you'd kick my ass
if I worried one moment
about leaving you
so soon
after Mama did.

You said it was time for my Spring.

I had no idea you were so sentimental
until that first Christmas in my own house
when you gave me my childhood stocking
carefully preserved
for over 30 years.

You salty old dog.
Cursing and swearing and brawling and rumbling.
Those are the stories, anyway.
All I see, all I remember
is you are always there
when I really need you.
Just like a good Marine.

Semper Fi.