In my dream a girl
floats on a raft.
She bends,
pulls from the river
a small, dark
winged thing,
brings it to me,
a stone, John
(my son’s first name,
the one we never use)
chiseled into it.
I’m half awake:
5:15 A.M.; 1:15 P.M. in Iraq.

* * *

On the way to the doctor,
I carry the dream in my body
over the snowy walk
past Wollman Rink...
8 A.M.; 4 P.M. in Iraq

Ben has asked for warm clothes,
lip balm. I’d forgotten
it could get cold in the desert.

      In the beginning,
all the stories were about
the heat, anguished
faces; that Iraqi man
on his knees, caught
in crossfire, the futile container
his arms were
around his small son.

* * *

9 A.M.; 5 P.M. in Iraq
As the cold dime of
the stethoscope sweeps
my back, I imagine Ben
underground in a
concrete room, maps
spread out on tables,
tacked to walls. He moves
from map to map,
never leaves the room.
This is how I keep him safe.

* * *

The vertigo started in March
when he told me
he would be deployed.
I sat down on the sidewalk
at the corner of forty-third
and Broadway, waited
for the spinning to stop.

12 P.M.; 8 P.M. in Iraq
The technician gives
me earplugs, presses
the button that slides
my body into the white
tunnel, where harsh
knocks and alarms
hammer out the map
of my brain, hidden
in its burning pigments,
the memory of my son
when he was three, sitting
by a window, waiting for
the rain to stop so
we could walk through
the mud to the lake
where we would place
our hands on stones,
let ladybugs crawl all over them.

* * *

I believed if I was present
for his football games,
he wouldn’t get hurt;
that if I made the two hour drive
from Stamford to Ramsey
in half the time
that day he ran into a tree,
I could keep him
whole in his body.

Mid-afternoon, September,
after Beast, that first
training plebe year, I fixed
him in my mind,
and he called
later that evening: Mom,
were you at West Point today?
And I said no.
      But I thought
I saw you on the Plain.
I said no, but what time
did you see me?
And he named the moment
I’d prayed for him.

I thought it had something
to do with our
heartbeats, like clocks
placed in the same
room. Once

I believed I could
close my eyes and know,
even when my son was
on the other side of the world,
if he was alive.

That was the summer he rappelled
down mountains on rope

that from a distance looked thin
as the dragline of a spider,

barely visible, the tension
he descended

into the made-up
state of Pineland

with soldiers from his class.
They started with a rabbit,

and since my son was the only one
who'd never hunted,

he went first. He described it:
moonlight, the softness

of fur, another pulse
against his chest.

The trainer showed him
how to rock the rabbit

like a baby in his arms,
faster and faster,

until every sinew surrendered
and he smashed its head into a tree.

They make a little squeaking sound,
he said. They cry.

He drove as he told me:
You said you wanted to know.

I didn't ask how he felt.
Maybe I should have,

but I was biting
off the skin from my lips,

looking out
beyond the glittering line

of traffic flying
past us in the dark.

1.

Before he left for combat,
he took care of everything:
someone to plow the driveway,
cut the grass.
And the letter he wrote me,
just in case, sealed
somewhere, in a drawer;
can't be opened,
must be opened
if he doesn't return.
I feel for my keys,
hear his voice:
Less is better. Late
for work, still
I linger
at the window of the Century
Florist, a bowl of peonies,
my face among the tulips.

2.

Last Mother's Day, when
he was incommunicado,
nothing came.
Three days later, a message
in my box; a package,
the mail room closed.
I went out into the lobby,
banged my fist against
the desk. When they
gave it to me, I clutched it
to my chest, sobbing
like an animal.
I spoke to no one,
did not apologize.
I didn't care about the gift.
It was the note I wanted,
the salt from his hand,
the words.