Weekly Poem: 'Reading Stephen Crane's 'War Is Kind' to My Husband'

**By Jehanne Dubrow** I packed your seabag today: six pairs of pants, shirts folded in their rigid squares, your socks balled up like tan grenades. I put my photo in as well, laid it there between the Kevlar vest and heap of clothes. Don't weep, the poet warns, don't weep. On _60 Minutes_, a soldier turns his face toward us, shows the camera his burns, small metal slivers still embedded in the skin, his mouth a scrap of ragged tin. The young man's face was beautiful before, smooth, unblemished as my own. _For war_ _is kind_, I read. _Great is_ _the battle-god_ and great the auguries, the firing squad, the neon green of night vision that cuts the darkness open at its seams, gutted and spilling on the sand. Great is the Glock, the Aegis Weapons System, the Blackhawk circling. Great are the Ka-Bar fighting knives, the shells that sing through air, as though alive.   "Jehanne Dubrow":http://www.jehannedubrow.com/ is the author of three poetry collections: "The Hardship Post," "From the Fever-World" and most recently "Stateside," which is an exploration of the long history of military wives waiting for their husbands to return from war. Dubrow, who is married to an officer in the U.S. Navy, is an assistant professor in creative writing and literature at "Washington College":http://www.washcoll.edu/.   **Editor's Note:** You can read her previous Weekly Poems, "'Against War Movies'":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/04/weekly-poem-against-war-movies.html and "'Nonessential Equipment.'":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/04/weekly-poem-nonessential-equipment.html