Shot of Seagrams

How can I prove that a memory is true?

Especially now, when every witness but me is dead.

 Here’s what I know:

Just one spark from his cigarette

As he worked on the truck

found its way to the gas tank.

The flames flashed up

but he turned his head just in time.

So that as he whirled away

my father’s handsome face was spared.

But not his ear.

Or his arms.

Or his back.

They needed to graft

but there was no skin left

so they took it

from my mother’s tender thighs.

The doctors used the grafts to make webs

under his arms.

They looked like bat wings.

He was supposed to let them heal.

But he had to get to work.

He needed his arms to wheel

that big Kenworth down

from the mountain into town.

Maybe he lit a cigarette first.

Or had a shot of Seagrams.

Maybe he just took a deep breath.

I don’t know.

But here’s what he did:

He raised both arms fast and hard

and ripped those webs loose 

My mother wrapped layers of white gauze

around his arms and chest

and he went to work.

At the end of each day the gauze was soaked,

fluid seeping through

the color of pink lemonade.

No one can confirm that this story is true.

But would I have made it up?