In her powerful debut collection, Pamela Hart MFA ’04 reflects on the experiences of soldiers’ loved ones during their absence and return home … or lack thereof.
War Partita
Dear one
From the yard I see Mars
While you keep watch in far-off deserts
I check the world clock
Looking for the force of cluster
I recon the conflict
Secure the day’s perimeter
Tripwire my better angels
Oh you of frenzied armor
Carve this song
Into your bullet
Women & War Sestina
We pass around Jane’s photo
In black & white a helmet
covers her soldier’s face
Somewhere in Afghanistan there’s news
We complain that we don’t know
how things are going
I worry about my son’s going
& stroke the edges of Jane’s photo
Like a charm, it shields my knowing
the specifics of his helmet
I guard against too much news
but headlines mark my face
Every war zone is a face
scarred by combat’s goings
Jane anticipates bad news
wonders if unevenness in the photo
means her soldier’s tilted helmet
is a sign of unknown knowns
Mary panics that she doesn’t know
Searches blurry images for faces
& declares history like a helmet
sings with soldiers’ going
I notice how light in Jane’s photo
slants in shadows across some news
We’re good at dodging news
Can’t be hurt by what we don’t know
Secretly I stare at the photo
even as lines in my face
recur like prayers against going
My words airborne like helmets
The story of soldiers’ helmets
marks the headlined news
that war is fed by comings & goings
of the sons & daughters we know
How we ache to hold their faces
when looking at Jane’s photo
Face the facts, we sing
while knowing soldiers’ photographs
behold their ever-goingness
War Games
In a photograph posted online plastic soldiers crouch behind switchbacks of sand and twigs. Several lie sideways in the dirt, like helpless turtles. Miniature paper flags flutter near the enemy’s berm. Elsewhere a mustard-yellow cowboy idles, his hat hanging off the back of his head as the pistol is fired. His target is decked out in headdress and chaps, rifle in one hand and bow in the other. My son’s first gun was a dinosaur.
Flynn’s Pond
My pregnant belly
your small torso
below the pond’s skin
us drifting
in an overcast day
the pond itself floating
like a ceramic boat
in the middle of the world
surfaces unmarked by breeze
or the scar of us
the water’s desire for our bodies
our want for its glassy touch
you’re safe said the pond
its blanket
coiling around our legs
Jalalabad
Falling asleep I say the word Jalalabad. My tongue rolling over the syllables of the name of the city. The aaas and lllls like bedtime prayers. The word a secret in my mouth that streams across lake through the night. Jalalabad says a coyote. I am late for everything because Jalalabad. I find it difficult to talk. In meetings, other words seem dissonant. Hours later I lose track in the canned goods aisle. By dinner, Jalalabad is an ancient desert city at the foot of the Khyber Pass, fed by rivers, with a highway from Kabul to Peshawar. It’s a centerpiece on the kitchen table. It is orange and pomegranate. And soldiers near helicopters. I clean the sink. A sense of place is important to a reader. Jalalabad, sing my hands.
Praise Song
A morning prayer to all
That keeps you safe
To body armor and weapons
The drill sergeant and the bullet
Interpreter and phrase book
To MREs and rocket launchers
Also the forward operating
Base and your radio operator
The helicopter pilots and soldiers
Who donate blood the medic
And tourniquet
Dog tags and helmet
I sing of your boots caked
In clay rough with hours
Of the IED you don’t step
On and the dog who finds it
The specialist and sniper
Tip of the spear and rear guard
I want to praise the desert
The women of Afghanistan
Tajik Pashtun Hazara
May they be wild with fury
To your smile
And your instinct
A praise song to next month and the next
Each one bringing you home alive
The Women
Joanie tells us she’s
not good at talking
when he’s home on leave
I’m getting married Stella announces
the dress is all picked out
You don’t want to baby him
Should I get his favorite food
Maybe wait to buy the dress
Our words weaving
in and out of the metal chairs
He was such a punk
The Marines were good
for him says Mary
Jane wants a do-over
It’s like being married to a stranger
I don’t want to fight anymore
It’s hard to listen
to people Shelly says
We count the days
check the inbox
We unspool our biggest
dread and make
it into a beautiful spider
Mothers Over Nangarhar
Powered by search engines
and history
mothers navigate
Google Earth, view the flashing
lights of MRAPs
as the cursors flag river or range
The mothers leap across time zones
check their satellite feed
sprint from screen to field
where you lie
split
calling their name
The mothers fly from Fallujah
Wanat, Khe Sanh to Marathon
Hastings, Vicksburg
Their hands are epic
their bodies large pouring
into and out of you
Transmigration
Thousands upon thousands of soldier birds
ferry to the beat of wings
at the edge of your sleep
You watch them spiral
In unison they turn
wheeling beyond the moon
that scrapes at your window
Illustration by Stefania Infante
Author photo by Steve Rago
Pamela Hart MFA ’04 is writer-in-residence at the Katonah Museum of Art, where she teaches and manages an arts-in-education program called Thinking Through the Arts. Recipient of the Brian Turner Literary Arts Prize in poetry, Hart has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship as well as a fellowship from the SUNY Purchase College Writers Center. After her son enlisted in the army at the height of the Afghan war, Hart joined the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, where she is now poetry editor and mentor. Upon his deployment, she also joined a support group for military families, and Hart serves as poetry editor for As You Were: The Military Review, which is published by the nonprofit organization Military Experience & the Arts.
“Mothers Over Nangarhar” was previously published as “Over Nangarhar” in the Sierra Nevada Review. “Flynn’s Pond” was previously published in Cider Press Review. “Praise Song” was previously published in Truck. “Transmigration” was previously published in Drunken Boat.