Family Reunion

At Audrey and Wayne's
we shared sweet
ice cold
Alabama watermelon.

Bonny,
Wayne's brother
listened
to his uncles
tell stories
about their
Confederate ancestors
who fought
and died
at Gettysburg.

He watched
his cousins eat
smile-shaped slices
sweet pink juice
dripping down
their chins.
He listened to
their laughter
as they spat
out the seeds
measuring whose
went the furthest.

Bonny recalled
the taste of
roasted watermelon seeds
eaten on a
street corner in Saigon
during a different war
where the
rice paddy battlefields
made men brothers.

Sadly,
he shook his head,
there would be
no stories
to tell
of heroes of this war
no family reunions
where they
would eat
ice cold
Alabama watermelon
and laugh
while spittin' out the seeds.

Elizabeth M Van Hook