My older son is looking
For the quotient,
Because he is doing math
And it is a problem
Of division,
And I tell him how the total
Number can be divided into
Parts
And how, sometimes, sometimes
There is a remainder.
And I am thinking about my husband
Who is gone, deployed, to Afghanistan,
A country where men and women and
Children and roads and bombs and the
Risk of getting killed or having to kill is
Added together and the danger
Is multiplied.
And I only tell my children parts,
How he flew on a military cargo
Airplane to Turkey and then to
Kabul, how he slept on a bunk
In a transient berthing station
On a base next to the airport
And how, how I don’t say the
Other parts,
How I have not heard from him
In over two days,
Or how the airport is where
Three men were shot,
Dead,
Last week,
By a man wearing the uniform
Of the Afghan National Army.
And my younger son can only
Say a few words
Even though he is five years old.
And he is saying hello and daddy’s car
Because he cannot say anything else
And because the driveway is half empty.
Now it is night
And this day is
Already splitting
Into tomorrow
And my children
Are asleep or how
What they know is
Only a part of what
The world will teach them,
And I am standing, here, in
This hallway watching them,
And their bodies are still and
Alive and whole,
Like atoms,
How they are the smallest
Units of matter, how they
Are the smallest units that
Matter.
As always thank you for sharing
Brilliant and riveting. I felt the depth of so many emotions. Thanks for sharing