Not just because a child draws him — pie-faced and frontal, 
Grinning—it’s hard to watch the man’s head and hands take shape 
From a black magic marker, despite the other colors in the box: 
The sparse hair on his forehead, the eye-orbits without pupils, 
A hook, like an inverted question mark, to signify the nose, 
And his mouth a lipless grimace, really a snarl.

Two Xs represent what might have touched, waved, even spanked, 
And the eyes’ white squint might be the child’s memory 
Of the man’s manic visitations: those babblings of happiness 
Sweeping through the house, until everyone in his wake 
Went a little crazy too, slugged dumb by his anecdotes about the war, 
Words misfiring like the Spitfire he’d mimic, arms flung wide like wings.