[Magdalen] thinking about my mid-twenties

[ME Michaud]

I was living in a small apartment in the city,
head-over-heels in love,
working at M.I.T.
thinking about graduate school.

When he was the same age,
my father was slogging through western Europe.
A paratrooper and French-speaker, he'd been dropped behind enemy lines.
A member of the 82nd airborne,
he participted in the D-day invasion and the Battle of the Bulge.
He never talked about it with us children.

Uncle Jack, a surgeon, was sent into Bergen-Belsen to evaluate and treat
newly-liberated prisoners.
I only found out about it when I read his obituary.
He never talked about it with us children.

My mother's college roommate went overseas with the American Red Cross to
run feeding programs for people who hadn't eaten properly in a year or
more. They had to start them with spoonfuls of jelly and clear soup and
wait until their gi systems began to function again before they could
tolerate actual food.

Today pretend Nazis walk our streets at night, posturing and yelling.
How angry am I?
Can't tell you.
-M