The dead say little in their lettersthey haven’t said before.We find no secrets, and yethow different every sentence soundsheard across the years. My father breaks my heartsimply by being so young and handsome.He’s half my age, with jet-black hair.Look at him in his navy uniformgrinning beside his dive-bomber. Come back, Dad! I want to shout.He says he misses all of us(though I haven’t yet been born).He writes from places I never knew he saw,and everyone he mentions now is dead. There is a large, long photographcurled like a diploma–a banquet sixty years ago.My parents sit uncomfortablyamong tables of dark-suited strangers.The mildewed paper reeks of regret. I wonder what song the…