Not the First
by Lisa Wujnovich
I am sixteen, in Florida, a lifeguard
at the NCO Pool on Homestead AFB.
I tell myself, I will not go out with a GI.
No, I will wait for a college boy,
brainy with long hair and a smart-aleck mouth.
I will not imagine
splashing soldiers as high school boys
with feathered rock star hair and soul train afros.
I am in the barracks, on break and a dare.
No, I will not go out with a GI,
not even one with the bluest eyes,
so shy he sends his friends to flirt.
Crouched on his metal bunk bed,
I am trying to be one of the guys,
tanned legs inches from theirs,
passing the bong pipe, Led Zeppelin
raging to black light-convulsed rock posters,
incense, lava lamps, bared teeth.
Unlucky, like their numbers, I see my father,
signed up for an American Dream,
immigrant son, steel mill dodger,
retired before forty, dazed in front of TV,
shirtless, sweating through couches, unemployed
WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War veteran.
Shivering in air conditioning,
bikini damp under my oversized tee shirt,
I refuse the pass—I am on duty.
Their ghost boy eyes devour me; I surf turbulent
waters of dismembered bodies and Agent Orange,
ignore burning children and sighs exhaled
from coffins disguised as footlockers.
No, I will not go out with a GI,
I will lower my eyes, joke, laugh—
but not too hard, worry my safe return
down the fire escape,
back to the lifeguard chair, above
their cannonball jumps where I pray,
I won’t need to save those
whose strong arms barely flap to the side.
No, I will not go out with a GI,
but yes, I will say after his friend asks again,
and again. I already know the end of summer—
I will give back the halved-heart necklace
he will clasp around my neck,
No, he will not be the first, not the very first.
“‘Not the First’ wrestles with coming of age on military bases during the Vietnam War era. I grew up hearing amusing stories of military antics by my soldier father with violence, pain, and war unspoken, but palpable.” —Lisa Wujnovich
Lisa Wujnovich is a poet and organic vegetable farmer rooted in Hancock, NY, but raised as an Air Force brat. Lisa has two published chapbooks, Fieldwork (2012, Finishing Line Press) and This Place Called Us (2008, Stockport Flats Press). Her poems have appeared in anthologies like Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology (2018, University of Georgia Press) and NOW, the online journal of Hobart, Festival of Women Writers. Her poems can be found recently in Calyx, Banyan River Review, MERVOX, Snapdragon and FEDCO 2022 Seed Catalog. She co-edited the anthology The Lake Rises, by Stockport Flats Press. She has an MFA in poetry from Drew University.