Veterans

Veterans

In Nineteen-Forty-Four, my Aunt Angela ran away from home.
After a year of wandering around the country,
She married a man who worked for the circus.

Uncle Hank was almost a veteran of the second world war,
out on medical discharge after shooting himself
in the foot just before he was to ship out.

Aunt Angela worked as a bookkeeper, while he was at the local bar.
On Fridays, she would get her paycheck, go to the bar
to pay his tab and wait for him to come home and beat her.

On the Friday of their fourth anniversary, she went straight home
from work. When Uncle Hank came home, upset at being thrown
out of the bar, she killed him with a cast-iron frying pan.

She ran from their home, taking their three children
and returning to live once again with her parents,
hiding from the police and Uncle Hank’s family.

She lived out the rest of her days as a runaway, a murderer,
former bookkeeper, mother of three, a domestic war veteran
and keeper of the family secret.