Okinawa At Night

Sometimes the war follows us home.

Okinawa

I’d wake hearing the gears spinning
in the night-darkened bedroom,
the sound of the hammer-cock
sinking in from the ceiling.
The rounds hungry,
feeding,
shh-click, shh-click.
Cartridges loaded,
primers striking,
bullets firing,
empty phantom cases ejecting hot;
the midnight sounds of machine gun fire.

It couldn’t be possible to know that sound
while lying safe under grandma’s quilts.
That sound as intimate as a hair pin trigger
and heartbeats ticking off live rounds.
It came like dream memories under soft lamplight:
Okinawa.
Tat-tat-tat, tat-tat-tat,
they fell and seeped through the bedroom walls,
faint like the television left on low,
but our rooms were dark,
the lights put out.

My grandfather rolls over in the next room,
the sheets sighing around him as he dreams,
his heartbeats thunder in my ears
thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum,
blending into the still night's rocket fire.
In the attic above us
it looks down from its tripod,
like a living thing crated,
well-oiled,
unmanned these forty years,
surprised by the weight of its own memories.