Day late and a month too soon

Word was Mom’s pregnancy
hadn’t gone well, should not go full term.
My birth was to be a scheduled procedure.

Dad flew back home from his contract work
near the Arctic Circle — a radar installation
in service of the Cold War.

That he managed a flight was no small feat back then.
Years later, he gave me the necktie he’d borrowed,
kept from a friend — those days you didn’t fly without proper attire.

Just in time, so they thought, from airport
— to home — to hospital;
my brothers kept safe in a neighbor’s house.

Some key provision had been overlooked
or perhaps my mother had simply mistaken
the appointment.

They were told to come back the following day.

Both would recall, fondly, sharing a pizza
that night instead
and just talking, the two of them.

Both would tell different versions
of the story — of all that history in time.

Each would urge that I respect the other
even as they hinted
at their own un-noticed wound.