114 Journal of American Culture A Gift

Gerald McCarthy

The day my mother died my father gave me a metal space pistol- it would whir and spark when I pulled the trigger back. 1 was four years old then and did not understand, but I saw my father’s tears how his hands shook when he gave me the toy, and If knew I would not see her again. Years later, aiming a rifle at a figure running along a hillside, I thought about my father- the afternoon we walked together through the neighborhood, words rising around us until I could not see. And squinting at the man a dark speck moving through the elephant grass, I did not squeeze the trigger but jerked it back so the round hit the treeline, the man out of range safe, but still running. This morning my father sits across from me, yet it is my mother I s e s - strong and lean as the years that took her, curled into the folds of a hospital bed. And today my own son comes downstairs for breakfast, he laughs, pushes a pencil into my father’s hand, asks him to draw a boat with sails-a magic one that spins and whirls. And watching the two of them together, Nicky sliding on his chair, his head bent

as my father sketches the outline of the prow, I realize how long it’s taken us to forgive each other, this gift beginning to take shape onthepaper, its sail billowing as if i t were adrift already, and the secret of its beauty lived inside of change.

Black Granite Burns Like Ice

Walter McDonald

Watching the world from above, all fallen friends applaud in blisters on our backs. Wherever I go, there’s fire.

My dreams are napalm. I’ve been to the wall and placed my fingers on their names. Black granite burns like ice

no lips can taste. Sad music’s on my mind, a war on every channel. After the madness of Saigon I flew back through California

to the plains, hardscrabble fields with cactus and the ghosts of rattlers. I feed the hawks field mice and rabbits. I’m no Saint Francis,

but even the buzzards circle, hoping whatever I own keeps dying. My wife’s green eyes count cattle all week long, saving each calf,

each wounded goat ripped open by barbed wire. After dark we rock on the porch and watch the stars,

wondering how many owls dive silently per acre, how many snakes p a grandchild, how many wars before all dreams are fire.