it really is funny how things can haunt you
punctuation helps when haunted
gives control
assists with making meaning
but not with John Mohowski
i for one am guessing
most of us baby boomers
knew about the war that birthed us
not that anybody i knew talked about it much
especially John Mohowski
i mean there were those pictures that we saw
of the skeletons with skin on
leaned up against barbed wire and breathing
or so the pictures said
and too there was the stuff
in the trunk my grandma hid in the barn
a piece chipped off the taj mahal
and the incense fingers
we kids called them fingers
because they were as long and thick as ours
those incense fingers
the ones my dad brought home
from india
my dad was there
in india
loading bombs onto airplanes
that would fly across some hump or other
i knew that
my mom was in it too
the war
i knew that
but i must admit i did not know where
or when
or how
just that she looked beautiful in uniform
or so the photos seemed to say
as did the look on daddy
every time he saw them
at least until
the wince
took his inner eyesight
someplace else
people have different talents
you know how it is
like my dad
he was always good at wincing
i never saw him flinch from anything
but i am here to tell you that the man could wince
it was subtle
happened in those moments
those rare moments
when something deep inside him hurt
and you could probably only see it if
you happened to be his kid
i saw it when he caught us
looking
at the pictures of the breathing skeletons with skin on
and i saw it when he watched my mother
pour herself and him another drink apiece
and i saw it
sometimes
when he looked at their friend John Mohowski
who was rounder than the other men
and softer too
and from not norway or sweden but poland
and who liked to sit serenely by the lake
and drink his beer
people said he was shot down
behind some lines or other
and been captured
and escaped
and walked a long way to get out
but no one said it within earshot of the man himself
at least while i was around and listening
and
most likely
never
for all I know
he is still alive somewhere
fading as they say away
but John Mohowski haunted me
almost all my life
there are days
always have been days
when i find myself outdoors
looking at a wall of bricks
or indoors at a wall of plaster
and instead of bricks or plaster
i see water
and John Mohowski
lifting a can of beer in silent salute
as he passes us
oh so smoothly
in his sailboat
on our lake
[And here I find that nowadays I always have to interrupt my poem to explain to folks that once upon my lifetime the lake belonged to all of us and it was nice. Yep.
Nowadays I have to tell people, complete with punctuation, that this was before the Romneys bought the West Coast and the Bushes bought the Maine part of the East, and that I was maybe the last generation of normal everyday working-class folk who got to grow up around the water; that fishermen and lobstermen and suchlike used to live right near the water, in cottages. Yeah. And they could walk themselves to work instead of driving pickups a dozen miles to town. And kids like me? We used to sit on the lake – ours and everybody else’s lake – in rowboats, in the summer, and wait for fish to bite while our uncles would read to us, and I guess they maybe read us Hemingway but I don’t remember listening really. And I sure don’t remember the war parts if there were some. Anyway…]
what haunts me most of all is the circle
the circle of grownups in their lawn chairs
the circle of grownups between the cottage and the water
and John Mohowski
as he did so many times when I was small gets up
again
from the circle of grownups
without saying anything
and walks down to the edge of the water
again
and stares out across the lake
again
as if he is waiting
for some part of himself
to come out of the woods
on the other side
and swim on home to him
and then
when it fails to appear he turns
again
and walks
again
unspeaking
past the circle of grownups
with his empty lawn chair in it
and climbs the steps
to the cottage he shares with his wife mildred
again
and goes inside and closes the door
again
and for at least a little while
again
is gone
when i turn
in my haunted head
back to the circle of grownups
with the John Mohowski chair in it
empty
i see my mother
looking in the direction of the cottage
as if watching him walk there
again
as if she knows
as if she knows
as if she knows
something
and then i see my father who is cooking burgers on the grill
watching her
and wincing
as if he knows
as if he knows
as if he knows
something
my father leaves the grill
walks around the circle
sits in the empty chair beside my mother
puts his arm around her
she leans her head on his shoulder
and suddenly John Mohowski does not haunt me
anymore
what haunts me now
is my mom
and what it is she knows
