Palermo, Sicily, 1943

for George "You always said you had little invisible friends," He wrote in a Christmas card one year, and Yes, funny he would remember that. I called them Shovel, Hoe, and BicaBacaBoca, all of indeterminate gender, like Arial in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," beautiful like that, and mysterious. Like the Bard, I now consign them to the page. Reborn again. My Navy hero, he sent us letters in brown V- Mail folders, wartime paper and postage efficient, and in one for our pianist stepmom, the lyrics and music to "Lili Marlene." As for pin-ups, he never owned up to Betty Grable's fabled legs, her teasing over-the-shoulder glance, aimed toward GI's everywhere, though there was the obligatory tattoo he could never erase after sailor days, bluing like Popeye's down the inside of his right arm. Pacific time brought reward, some misfortune: a bout with tuberculosis in Bizarte, Tunisia: a year of recovery in a Naval hospital at home, painting by the numbers, waiting out the time. But, there was a hero's commendation from his commanding officer for "aid in evacuation of the wounded, and bringing the vessel into port after torpedoing." The ship, LST-3, earned two battle stars for World War II service. Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register, it was sold for scrapping, 10 September, 1947 - the year I graduated from high school. He was not sold for scrap metal, nor sustained any. He came home to his sweetheart, and his kid sister -- you know the one. That's her in a middle row of the Ritz movie house, the one crying while "Anchors Aweigh" plays after the War Bonds trailer to the image of a warship, plunging valiantly on a faraway sea