Gil Hoy
You Wouldn’t Know
he was my father.
I never knew him
very well
because he wasn’t around
when I was born.
You wouldn’t know
he married my mother
when she was just 16. That he
took my sister to the park
most Sunday mornings
so my mother
could sleep in.
You wouldn’t know
a lot about any of that.
That he was passionate
about lifting up the weak
and the poor
that he believed America
is a great Country.
You wouldn’t know
much about any of that.
You wouldn’t know
that he began to question
why we were there
before he died
that he forgave his enemy
who planted the mine
that blew off his leg
on a faraway field.
You wouldn’t know
anything about any of that.
I’ll never forgive
those who sent him there,
I can’t.
I know his small, rectangular
white marble marker
because it bears his name.
Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who studied fiction and poetry at The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona and at Boston University. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He finished in second place in the New England University Wrestling Championship while at BU at 177 lbs. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Third Wednesday, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, One Sentence Poems, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, The New Verse News and elsewhere.