My sister found my father
in his chair. A can of beer
and the TV still going.
Not like Shane or Pale Rider
or Appaloosa. We don’t get
to ride away the chances hanging.
She asked me why he was
floated like that. No song
of farewell a crooning defiance.
His old RAN tattoo keepsake
from beneath the Acropolis. Stretched
as old canvas bleaked into dark.
No chorus of saved yet regretful
townsfolk follow. Wanting to blame
anyone but themselves at the saddle.
There’s a yella streak as wide
as the Missouri, the Mississippi
and the unfenced Rio Grande.
A double dry gulch of dirt track
misleads each way. Should have
turned back half way into the sunset.
The mystery of blood in a fish
out of water. The frenzy of breathing
all the notches on a forearm drooping.
Photo of my father at the Acropolis. HMAS Vampire, operating out of Alexandria, 1940 – Mediterranean battle fleet, 19th Destroyer Division. The Nazis named the Australian five destroyer squad ‘The Scrap Iron Flotilla.’
In September 1939 he was too young to enlist, so he upped his age by a year.
Audio starts five seconds in.
Photo provided by my sister Jo.
James Walton Poetry 
Fine work, Jim!
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