My Father Called Me A Zero In Front Of Officers Until The Colonel Asked For My Call Sign

had furnished, and who had sat, and who had learned to be invisible, and who had gone on doing the work anyway from the invisible place because the work was real even when the acknowledgment wasn’t.

I stood for them too.

My father crossed the room when the crowd thinned. He stopped a few feet from me, as though measuring the distance that was appropriate.continue reading …