War

I think about you all every day. I'm typing here and you are dying there. I think about you all every day.


I think about the children of soldiers.
I think about the Iraqi children. I see their large dark eyes when I look at my children.
I think about the Iraqi mothers. I hear their voices trying to keep their children and their husbands safe.
I think about the grandparents. I see them ending their lives on a note of despair.
I think about the parents of our soldiers. The wives and husbands, lovers, known or secret. I think about the children. I think about all the books that are being laid down for the stories of heartbreak and emptiness.
I think about our President.
I think about his girls.
I think about Jenna Bush and her lovely wedding.
I think about Condeleza and wonder what she is thinking.
I think about the desert sand and how hot and hard the wind is, like a hand.
I think about IEDs. Their particular tortures.
I think about Mickey and the list of initials tattooed on his arm.
I think about soldiers going back, into a hell they just left.
I think about the babies unborn in their mothers, Iraqi babies, spilling out onto the sand already full of blood.
I think about the alcoholic soldier on ' Intervention ' whose father wept as he held his drunken son, in another stupor and blackout, running from what happened to him across the ocean.
I think about my friend James, three years old, and his older brother, who found out that their father wasn't coming home. I think about his older brother's nightmares, how he dreams of his father in pieces.
I think about the physical pain, and I stop thinking.


I wonder if this kind of thing will ever end, like everyone has wondered from the time it began- war and it's deaths and rapes and suffering and mutilations.
I am exhausted and ashamed, because all I am doing is thinking and feeling,
and none of this is happening to me. There's nothing for it. I just write and pray and tell soldiers thank you, even though it feels like the stupidest thing to say, thank you for dying and suffering and watching it all,
so I didn't have to.

Mickey, a Soldier in Iraq / Iraq poem

I was taking Math last semester. I hate Math. I was happy to immediately find something else to think about, when Mickey's shoulder tattoo of soldier boots with ominous circling of initials caught my eye.

He was 23, new father of a son and recently back from Iraq. He had been in Afghanistan; he was there at Fallujah. (Click on the title of this blog to see and hear an account of Fallujah from a soldier. WARNING: the youtube this connects to contains images of war. Please be advised, your heart will suffer.) His eyes are electric blue, piercing and direct, and his body never stops moving. Here- fingers tap, here - feet dancing underneath the desk, here- another joke, witty aside, loud laugh during lecture. He is whippet thin and strong, built like a soldier and young- very young, like an American soldier.

I asked about his tattoo and he pulled up the tee shirt sleeve, peered at the boots and dangling dog tags, ran his fingers over the initials. ' These are my boys,' he said, not looking at me. ' They're dead. ' There were about seven sets of initials.

' I'm so sorry, ' I said. What else? ' What about these? ' I pointed to the three silver cuffs circling his right wrist.

' My closest friends, ' he said. ' They're dead. '

' I'm so sorry, ' I said.

' It must be really hard, ' I said.

He nodded. ' One of em, my friend, he died on his last day. Got caught in a IED and his leg was blown up. He bled to death. We wrapped his leg up and all, but he bled to death. '

' I'm so sorry, ' I said.

He shrugged. ' Yeah. '

' How is it over there, ' I asked.

' It's bad. The fucking rules of conduct...fucking gone, no one knows, it's not the same as it was in the beginning, you gotta survive, I've seen kids killed at checkpoints because the car they were in didn't stop in time. The soldiers, they're just shooting at will now, nobody's following protocol, it's fucking insane. It's insane. '

I sat in silence. ' Thank you, ' I said. ' For serving. Thank you for everything you guys do. '

He shrugged. ' Yeah. ' Tap, tap, his fingers. His feet. He grinned. He talked about his son and wife, told a graphic joke.

I bought him a cup of coffee, told him thank you again. There's nothing I can do.
Vote. Buy a cup of coffee. Pray.


This poem does not represent my typical voice, or style. However, it represents my feelings well, so I am pasting it here anyhow.

POEM REMOVED----