MONDAY: War Widow

BY JOHN GREY

Copyright is held by the author.

With baby soldiers, the war grows
a harder squadron out of them. My battle
is the storm, battering the roof, a war machine
of rain, hitting hard as bullets. I hear the iron water
smacking, smashing. Will this make me tougher?
Thunder sends in its tanks. Lightning has me under fire.
I’m trying to remember all those baby soldiers marching,
out of their houses, by the garden, through the gate.
But the rain is so immediate, so near.
The baby soldiers grow in number, in courage,
now they face the enemy. Faces grim yet fresh against
the dark. This is sure one hell, I say, as if we
both paused at that moment, shared a breath.
Can’t sleep, not with the rain this hard, this incessant,
as if it means me. What else could it mean?
The bodies of rain accumulate. Leftovers
turn to mist. I do not know what will happen.
That is, I can only guess — based on what the
sign through the blinds is telling me.
As if war and rain are just the same.
Like those determined trees, battered by wind,
I must keep my head. Such a wild howl outside.
But surely there’s more to truth than this.
And to think that women are instructed to play safe.
The worst that can happen is a night when
the lights go out. There’s a flicker. Then
a blackout turned to light again in an instant.
Then finally, no power. All black.
I wonder if that’s what dying’s like.
They tell me I must work,
must fight hard behind the lines,
as patriotic, as conscientious as if it were war.
But work is not war. Alone in a storm is war.

***

John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Subject Matters, Between Two Fires and Covert are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.

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