Coming Home
Yvette Viets Flaten
My father arrived stateside from Thailand
in 1969, just before Thanksgiving.
That night I could hear my parents talking
together all night long, her high giddy laugh
and his burr coming through the gypsum
plaster of our old rented house.
My dad died twenty years ago, my mom
two months ago, during the warmest January
on record. with so little frost in the ground
that opening the grave was hardly work.
Some will credit climate change for loosening
the ground, but I know better. He was waiting,
expectant, happy, when her casket sank against
the shoulder of his.
All I could think was that the ground was softened
by reason of their love; no more wars, no more
oceans, no separations. I imagine they have not
quit talking yet.