after Wilfred Owen

Bent double, cinched in contraction and blind with anticipation I labored to bring forth her tiny 
body till on the safe and ordered world of hospital we turned our backs and trudged toward life 
without rest. Drunk with joy we survived night feeding and weaning, through tummy time and 
temper tantrum to the ecstasy of late toddlerhood: some independence, easy laughter, deep 
devotion. Hung like twin planets in her consciousness, we were gravity, inspiration, divinity. Not 
soldiers but soldiering. There was rapture in years six and seven, in her spunk and clever wit, and 
then some sass at eight or nine we weathered. It’s not the same as war, I know; I do not suffer as one 
gassed, but when the hormones dropped like bombs and the outside world seeped in at last, she
began to turn from me. I faltered in my advance, walked around aflame with adolescence. Her easy 
dismissal pierced my heart’s weak shield and battlement but was no preparation for full assault: rage 
at nothing, loud lewd lyrics through the wall, pure hatred’s countenance, impatience with my very 
breath and speech. What could I do? I folded my dreams in her lunchbox and slipped her a ten 
dollar bill. Soon there will be curfews and half-truths, maybe some nudes, beer or weed on her 
breath, a piercing or tattoo. If someone had told me I would become, like my own mother, bug-eyed 
and impatient, a traitor to my own intention; if someone had told me I would walk straight into a 
wall where I thought there was none; if someone had told me I’d rather the obscene gore of 
chewing off a limb than endure, well even then I would beg them tell me the old lies: that it goes so 
fast, that it gets easier, that it’s worth it, sweet and noble, in the end.

Morning dews each day.
Still the sun sets on horror
as it does on joy.