In birdsong, my father strolled the Presidio
of San Francisco, a Filipino in the US
Army, sharp in parade dress, lieutenant's
bars riding his shoulders like sun cresting
clouds. A corporal in dingy fatigues walked
past my father, snickered, kept his right
hand by his hip. "Hold it right there, soldier!"
my father barked. "Where's that goddamn salute?"
The corporal smirked, looked him in the eye and said
nothing, but my father could read it in his face—
I'll be damned before I salute a little brown
monkey who ought to be climbing a fucking tree.
My father growled an order. The soldier jerked
to attention. My father slipped off his jacket, draped it
on a hedge. The rainbow of ribbons reminded him
not of crossfire and the soldier he saved on patrol,
not of the forced retreat to Corregidor,
not of the weeks evading Japanese capture,
not even of the Bataan death march,
nor of the concentration camp. Instead
he recalled the American jeep that tried to run
him down in a rainstorm. Get out of the road, monkey!
My father said, "You might not want to salute me,
young man, but you will salute this jacket, these bars.
Do it!" Birds sang. "Again." Sun shone. "Again."
The corporal's arm swept the air, a wiper blade
trying to swipe brown mud from a windshield.
© Vince Gotera
