Let us open the gate
Nor fear beloved father that the stranger there
Who knocks with such importunity means harm
Though experience has taught you
That strangers bring bad tidings or worse
What time you stood upon ship’s deck
And fired upon the kamikaze
Whose momentum carries it down
Though the pilot be dead
True you have never shown me fear
Nor boasted of your wounds
But your Purple Heart covers only
Insults to the body
And not the lacerations of the mind
And you learned that the manly thing
Was to bury pain
Let us admit the insistent stranger
Who knows but that his tidings might be glad