Red-Blooded

At the last ultrasound we delighted
in the clarity with which we could see
tiny fingers. And the miraculous spine,
with its successively smaller bones,
each in its place, lined up in perfect formation.
Dizzy with relief and anticipation,
we decided to go ahead and hear the news
and the news was, "It's a boy."
My next thought was less a thought
than a seizure, a rearranging at the cellular level:
someone will want to send him to fight.
It was a kind of crossing over.

Our sons are four and five now,
we mothers who nursed with our backs
to the television, trying in vain
to keep those towers upright
through an act of willful denial.
We used to listen to the news
on the kitchen radio in the morning,
but now, if we have it on at all, we hover,
ready to spin that dial down to zero
as the telltale phrases begin:
Today in Fallujah. This morning on the outskirts
of Najaf. Yesterday, in the northern city of Mosul...
Roadside. Suicide. The bombs are everywhere.
Only our quick wrists save us.

No escape is possible, of course.
A friend's ex gives her boy camouflage pajamas.
My boy wants to save his money to buy a toy
that transforms into a battle station.
They thunder overhead, our red-blooded
American boys, feeling the pull of power.
We mothers sit downstairs and talk,
all the while keeping an ear out
for the moment when the game goes awry.
When the cry of real pain comes,
you may experience shortness of breath,
or a tightening in the chest.

(Thanks to the women of Poetry Thursday
for their continuing inspiration.
I don't always participate in the Poetry Thursday prompt,
but when I do, I am often an early contributor. Not so today.)