The Shrapnel Map

The telegram arrived on my phone as a grainy scan,

the ink of 1944 looking like a bruise on the screen.

It’s all formal codes and a list of metal parts

that found a home in his leg near a bridge in France.

He never talked about the way he used to limp,

or why he kept the heavy wool coat in the cellar.

I remember the missing brass button near the hem,

and how he’d rub his thigh when the weather turned wet.

They mapped his body in a language of cold facts,

counting the holes while the world fell apart outside.

Now I’m looking at the date and the time of the stamp,

realizing he was younger then than I am sitting here.