Veterans Day

Today I'll have pumpernickel toast

At the kitchen table

topped with cottage cheese like you.

Each morning, seated at the end of the table,

Your coffee,

Your paper,

Your English muffin topped with cottage cheese,

And the TV yelling from across the room,

You in your tie and jacket,

Quiet in your reading,

Your stirring and sipping,

Your spooning of a teetering mound of cheese

Onto the breakfast you knew each day.

We didn’t talk.

We didn’t share news.

I don’t remember you getting up from the table.

I don’t remember your sitting down at the table.

Today I think of you,

Your silent traditions,

The questions I never knew to ask,

The time you spent away from this table,

Fighting in war, married to another,

Thinking over secret memories,

Abroad.