One Day

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I have a secret to tell you.

Come here, sneak up, listen -

Leave your dinners at the table

With the place missing,

Leave your children playing quietly

Under an absent loving gaze,

Leave the lawn unmowed,

The schoolwork undone,

The dishwasher half-empty.

Let me tell you a secret:

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One day the war will be over.

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And on that day, the pieces of our families

Will be reassembled like a jigsaw puzzle

(that has warped and doesn’t fit quite flat)

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And our children will have two parents

For at few more patchwork squares in their lives

(leaving sad, sore gaps forever tender to the touch)

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The renewed backfiring of an old riding mower

Will be reassurance to us who were left behind

(and sudden images of death to those who have returned)

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A father or mother will help their child

To understand how to add and subtract fractions.

(one-fourth of their unit killed on the 22nd plus one-third sacrificed on the 25th…)

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The kitchen will slowly reapproach

some semblance of hygienic order

(like the cabin of a friend after he was minced)

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But still, the war will be over.

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One day.