PDF

Missing


by David Ackley



Except for the matter of his two wars,

he led, my uncle, what might be called a quiet life,

in a room, between times, at the top of the stairs,

building balsa planes, beautiful small flying things,

listening with one ear to the radio, the murmur of his

father's low voice, under the song of mother and sister's

back and forth, and the gearing down of trucks as they slowed

on Broad Street, which ends near the terminal peace

of Edgewood Cemetery, where now

all but him are gathered beneath the one stone,

while his bones, picked clean by curs and crows,

still whiten in the sun, somewhere near Unsan.

Endcap