Her Father’s Heart as Brownie Starlet

My mother’s dad is in the clouds. No, he’s in the sea.

JFK is on a plane. No, he’s on tv. He was in the Navy,

once. This is the base in San Diego. It is July, 1960.

She is fifteen. JFK is on tv. This is the base.

Her shirt is white cotton. A salt wind lifts

the shining darkness of her hair. She sights into noon

like a pilot. Her father’s as not here as clouds

blown inland from sea to desert air. He crashed.

He was captured. No, drowned. This is his drowned heart

heavy in her hand. No, it’s her Kodak Brownie Starlet.

She holds and turns it toward her looking past its lens.

The photo will be black and white and square

and far away as JFK. She will send it to herself, where she is,

with him underneath the waves. Her mother is gone, too. No,

she’s pinning her hair to attend the service for a body

that’s not there. The Civil Air Patrol is looking

for her. No, it’s looking for him. Where

is her house? Her bed? Her little brother? She is his mother

now. No, she needs a mother, so lets the Dakon lens

look after her. In the photo JFK will be there

with his arm around her shoulder. No. Only bare sky

and bleached wood siding. Her dark eyes

narrowed against sun and the Brownie Starlet, looking.

In six months, she will have a new father. No,

she will have a new president, handsome like her father.

In sixty years, she will be sifting the sky for contrails.

“Hello, Daddy,” she will say. Or sometimes, “Hello, Mama.”

She was captured. No, she drowned. No, she’s breathing

salt air thick with ocean. She is here. At the base. JFK is on tv.

My mother’s dad is in the clouds. No, he is in the sea.