somehow he made it back:
he hung his bloodied gloves on the mantel
and left his boots by the door, soles covered in death.
his mind, crazed with memory, would not stop
shouting at him gruesome images of ring fingers
and ankle bones. his hands, that once held
destruction, trembled now when they hadn’t before-
when he was throwing grenades and shooting men.
his teeth chattered, remembering the cold in his veins.
all he saw now was fire, as if he’d been birthed from it
and not his mother. as if he’d been loved by it and not
his brothers. it gave no warmth and blackened his lungs
but still, he had to believe he had done the right thing.

his mother had questioned him:
baby, why would you join the war?
a country’s greed is not worth your life
or the countless lives of others it consumes.
does it serve you? or the system?
my boys gentle hands were not made for guns
or bombs or nuclear weapons.
my boys hands were made for soothing the
skin of his children and holding the hand of his wife.

she had begged:
don’t go. please stay.
if nobody joined the war there would be no war.
your life is a twig in a forest fire that consumes the
whole world. and i love you too much.
be water, be water, be water. don’t go.

he hadn’t heard her over the sound
of paper bills being shuffled and
metal coins being weighed out.
he hadn’t seen her pleading face because
he was looking at the glowing news on television
preaching about how destroying foreign soil makes you a hometown hero
he thought it was his duty to dip his clean hands in the red blood

his wife, wiping the ash from her husband’s brow, embraced him
saying, as sure as the grass that grows,
“i’ve missed you.”

Sophie Briggs

Sophie Susanne is a poet currently studying in Boston, Massachusetts. She enjoys exploring themes of femininity, nature, sexuality, and change. Her work has been published in the Wingless Dreamer Magazine.