Nadiia Rom, Wild Field
Details
Carolyn Martin
Even in conflict zones, people keep on living.
–Anastasia Taylor-Lind, “Stories from the Road,”
National Geographic, August 2021
How? I want to know when gun shots mute birdsong
and shattered limbs can’t bear a rake or spoon or pen.
When women hold their dead in blood-soaked arms
and numb-eyed kids stare at empty bowls. How?
Like the Peshmerga guard in Iraqi Kurdistan.
She smooths out her cot, brushes her teeth, combs
her black-brown hair–uncovering scars across
her high forehead. Scrambling into her uniform,
she grabs her Kalashnikov to patrol miles
of hidden predators waiting for their turn.
Like the friend in Michigan: her husband out of work.
She tucks Lunchables in her son’s backpack,
buttons his yellow raincoat, waits at the school bus stop.
Her day: a spreadsheet of doables. An 8-hour stint
at Food4Less. A car needing gas. Prayers
her husband will get out of bed before their bank
account drowns beneath past-due bills and alcohol.
Like my mother in a nursing home. Her light blue eyes
can’t comprehend the black space on a chest x-ray.
Tumor? Cardio-event? The doctor won’t assume.
She spends sunny afternoons breathing in clouds
sliding through chestnuts and oaks, waiting
to wend her way home. She’s agreed to any time,
any road, any zone. She cannot say how or when.
Carolyn Martin
Even in conflict zones, people keep on living.
–Anastasia Taylor-Lind, “Stories from the Road,”
National Geographic, August 2021
How? I want to know when gun shots mute birdsong
and shattered limbs can’t bear a rake or spoon or pen.
When women hold their dead in blood-soaked arms
and numb-eyed kids stare at empty bowls. How?
Like the Peshmerga guard in Iraqi Kurdistan.
She smooths out her cot, brushes her teeth, combs
her black-brown hair–uncovering scars across
her high forehead. Scrambling into her uniform,
she grabs her Kalashnikov to patrol miles
of hidden predators waiting for their turn.
Like the friend in Michigan: her husband out of work.
She tucks Lunchables in her son’s backpack,
buttons his yellow raincoat, waits at the school bus stop.
Her day: a spreadsheet of doables. An 8-hour stint
at Food4Less. A car needing gas. Prayers
her husband will get out of bed before their bank
account drowns beneath past-due bills and alcohol.
Like my mother in a nursing home. Her light blue eyes
can’t comprehend the black space on a chest x-ray.
Tumor? Cardio-event? The doctor won’t assume.
She spends sunny afternoons breathing in clouds
sliding through chestnuts and oaks, waiting
to wend her way home. She’s agreed to any time,
any road, any zone. She cannot say how or when.