My Father Loved His Death 4

2.
On a ship pitching west
across the Pacific, toward tomorrow,
toward Hell, he retched and retched
into his helmet.
Behind him his wife and me and his baby girl;
behind him the house he had just built,
abandoned now to strangers;
behind him his return from
the real war six years before,
the shirt pocket ripped off by shrapnel
washed and folded in the bottom of his kit.

^^^ <---|---> <|>


	2. On a ship pitching west across the Pacific, toward tomorrow, toward Hell, he retched and retched into his helmet. Behind him his wife and me and his baby girl; behind him the house he had just built, abandoned now to strangers; behind him his return from the real war six years before, the shirt pocket ripped off by shrapnel washed and folded in the bottom of his kit.
^^^	<---\|--->	<\|>