My father had a beautiful baritone singing voice.
He wrote poetry after Wordsworth and Shelley,
nursery rhymes and songs for his three little girls.
He wore thick coke bottle glasses all of his life.

As a boy he was bullied and teased for his love of
music and reading. At 15, he left school and went
to work on the railroad. He once said at least 
his weak eyes bestowed him a strong eye for detail.

My father was 4F in World War II because of his eyes,
boyhood shame his foremost homefront companion.
He was drafted just after the war ended, the US
by then running short on national treasure.

He was not trained for combat and instead was sent
to the occupation army in Japan. Three weeks and
a hometown boy reaches a Tokyo fire-stormed to ash.
His brother once said at least it was not Hiroshima.

My father came home from the war and took a wife.
He took his chance with the GI Bill to buy a shotgun
house built by the L&N, who he’d worked for before
as 4F and to whom he returned as never the same.

When us three girls started coming along, he took a
good union job as a welder at a Whilrpool plant.
On weekends he tinkered and collected Craftsman tools.
He built us girls a playhouse and an airplane jungle gym.

My father over his haunted years grew ravenous,
furious, and gentle again once he forgot the war.
I remember him best like this, old in his coke bottle
glasses, singing in his beautiful baritone voice.