The recordings he sent in 1945,
a year and a half before he held me
for the first time,
all end, “Do you love your daddy?
Sure you do, and daddy loves you”
Years later I still hear him
after his homecoming,
his voice not matching the man
who spoke so softly to me
from a warship in the Pacific,
the smiling sailor of photograph albums
in white uniform and bad eyeglasses,
not matching the man who threw me
back onto the mattress of my baby bed
as I screamed and struggled each time
the stranger tried to hold me,
the voice of the angry man shouting me
out of bed early on Saturday mornings
to wash storm windows until my fingers
turned white in November winds,
wet with vinegar, old rags and the craziness
he brought home in a sea bag
Now, an older man myself on an autumn morning,
I miss him, my daddy, sure I do,
a sailor, hat cocked to one side of his thinning hair,
the soothing voice he had
before he came home from the navy