Guadalcanal


He wanted to be buried there,
the letter said, describing ocean
he remembered like a child’s drawing, 
almost uniformly blue, at least 
the last time he had it seen it,
from the fast-ascending plane.

The word felt awkward
in my child-mouth, like noises
ducks would make in mud.
Not scary-sounding like the battle 
Dad said Grandpa never spoke of
until so many years had passed
we grandchildren were born.

		***

The Duncan sank
in darkness patched with flashes
of exploding orange light. Confused
by radios that broadcast
either garbled Japanese
or tinny Christmas tunes, 
between enemy and friendly fire
my grandpa climbed
a turret as the deck grew hot 
beneath his feet and splintered 
just off Cape Esperance,
which he knew meant Cape Hope
in some romantic tongue.

Two life jackets clutched
to his chest, one filled
with shrapnel bits, jingling
like pocket change, he jumped
into the ocean where his mouth filled
with a slick of blood and diesel fuel.

I always asked about the sharks
and he would talk about their skin,
like heavy sandpaper that ripped
blanched flesh in chunks
off men they brushed against.
Sharks don’t eat carrion
and so the soldiers knew
which ones of them had died.
My grandfather passed out,

awakened later to small hands,
two Tongan boys, pulling
his slack, heavy form
from where they’d found it
floating in the waves, alone. 

	       ***

His widow thought it morbid
that he wished to be returned
in death to where he’d nearly died
so long before, but I remembered

how his voice picked up
in tempo, like a Benny Goodman tune, 
as he recalled out loud
the sparkling Auckland hospital
where nurses woke him whispering, 
and dances held outside 
with eager Red Cross volunteers,
the calm brunette who finally
asked him home for tea,

and how he said he’d nearly laughed
when shown a casualty list
bearing his name and “Missing/
Presumed Dead,” because 
it was the first time 
he had ever really felt alive.


Ali Fischer