Somewhere Children Do Not Play at War

You can’t blame me for flinching
back against the wall
when a small boy points his
pistol at me and yells “Pow! Pow! Pow!”

I am lying back there somewhere
feeling the sidewalk as if I’d never touched
sunshine, pumping out my urgent
puddle

And when three kids dash by, invisible
in their camouflage sneakers,
chattering on their walkie talkies,
pay no attention if I button my opinion
and pocket my fingerprints

I crouch somewhere in a black, sweaty
silence too small for me,
listening to voices muffled by cinderblocks
or years

And when I wake this morning
to jubilant cries, and look out to see twins
in miniature green berets waiting
while a man in uniform
unlocks the station wagon,
forgive me if I drop the curtain and start
smuggling my unborn children across the border

Somewhere I am waiting for my daughter
to come home, holding grief in
like one who holds a breath too long
under water

This poem appeared previously in The Other Side of Sorrow: Poets Speak Out About Conflict, War, and Peace, editor Patricia Frisella (The Poetry Society of New Hampshire, 2006).