My Dad Dreams of an Ordinary Life--New Poem

Here's a draft of a new poem. I imagined my Dad, a signalman aboard his small wooden ship, a Subchaser, in the middle of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in late October of 1944, hoping for an ordinary life back in Northeastern Ohio. Here's the poem:

Dream of an Ordinary Life

In October of 1944, my Dad, 22 years old,
Stood on the signal tower of Subchaser 1154,
A little wooden ship,
Offshore from the island of Leyte in the Philippines.

Black smoke all around the wild seas,
Bombers and fighters in the heavens,
Big naval guns pounding both Japanese and American ships,
Mines, torpedoes, shrapnel, kamikazes
Death everywhere, everywhere,

My Dad, 12,000 miles from Willoughby-on-the-Lake
Thought of his Mother’s apple pies, the wild black cherry tree
Outside their Hayes Avenue cottage—a home he, his Dad, and brothers built themselves—
Thought of his Dad sitting at the tavern at the corner of Lost Nation and Lake Shore,
Drinking Leisy’s Light and telling baseball stories,
Thought of brothers Connie, Jack, and Bill, fighting
This war hither and yon--Would he ever see them and his sister Bernice again?

What do you want from life, he asked himself, in a rare moment of reverie.
If you ever get back home?

The answer was rather simple:

A wife, a job, a little house, some children,
Friends and family nearby.
He wanted what once seemed so ordinary,
What once seemed too predictable, too tame,
Too lacking in adventure.

To see his mother and father again,
His brothers and sister.

To play horseshoes by Hayes Avenue,
And drink beer around a campfire,
To swim in Lake Erie again.

Just an ordinary life would be fine for him.
And he prayed for that right then and there,

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
Death whirring over his head,
12,000 miles from Willoughby-on-the-Lake.