MY MOTHER IS SUING THE US GOVERNMENT FOR POISONING HER HUSBAND

by Bill Garvey

The government doubts his
cancer was caused by Camp Lejeune.
How do you know he was even there? they ask. 
We lived in New Bern North Carolina, 
she says, and every day Bill took the bus to Cherry Point 
or Camp Lejeune depending on his orders.
 
But even if he was at Camp Lejeune,
how do you know he drank the water?
It was hot, May to September 1952.
I'm sure he drank the water.
Were you with him at Lejeune?
Did you witness him drink the water?
 
Of course I wasn't with him. 
Of course I didn't witness... 
So for all you know he could have quenched
his thirst with an ice-cold Coca-Cola.
Or even a Ginger Ale. For all you know he was never 
exposed to the water at Camp Lejeune. 
 
I was madly in love with a Marine 
with crooked teeth and a cocky grin. 
Every day from May to September he came 
home to me seventy-two years ago,
clean and showered, so handsome 
in his crisp uniform, stepping from the bus 
 
into our tiny apartment, ready for me. 
Embracing me so close I forgot all about the heat. 
I'll always remember how good he smelled 
at the end of a long day, his hair still damp from 
your showers, not a whiff of Coca-Cola—
or even a Ginger Ale—on his lips.

Author's note: This is a true story. My mother is 93, still sharp, and she is suing the US government for my father's death from kidney and renal cancer in 1977, when the world was ignorant to Lejeune.

Bill Garvey's collection of poetry The basement on Biella was published in 2023 by DarkWinter Press. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Rattle, One Art, San Antonio Review, Connecticut River Review, Cimarron Review, The New Verse News, The New Quarterly and others.

WAITING ON TRUDEAU

by Bill Garvey

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, April 9, 2021.

What would I do without Little Sito,

Her kibbeah, lubbeah and tabbouleh

Or the marinara sauce from Sugo drizzled over a meatball

The size of a softball, or Gus’s beef burrito

Wrapped as tightly as a newborn,

Or the sweet Albanian couple who stuff my donair

With the soul of true communism

And a healthy dollop of Halifax?

I’m waiting it out in Toronto

For Yakitori Don from Coo who

Opens for Take-Out-Only at 5

Behind a plexiglass partition

And a frown from the chef who

Hates that I’m American, I think,

Or just despises the stink of fear that wafts from Bloor

Or maybe the sewer.

I’m waiting for my mask to dry on the windowsill,

For the door to open, the sun to shine,

For the table I reserved for family

Or friends. I’d even sit with the danger of strangers.

I’d kill for linen napkins. A waitress with a bottomless smile

And a bottle of sparkling water.

I’m waiting for the man

On the street to stop veering from me

As if I had leprosy or some ailment far worse

Like, well, you know.

I’m waiting on Justin Trudeau

To answer his phone, to knock on my door,

To come to my rescue

On a horse, maybe, like the RCMP, with a syringe

And champagne.

Published in The New Verse News many years ago, Bill Garvey’s poems have been also published in Margie, The Worcester Review, 5AM, Slant, Diner, Concho River Review, New York Quarterly, and, recently, Nixes Mate Review. Finishing Line Press published his chapbook The Burden of Angels in 2007.  He and his wife live in Toronto for six months and in a tiny fishing village in Nova Scotia the other, warmer six months. Bill is a dual citizen of Canada and the US and has lived in Canada since 2010.