Sometimes, I forget the sun sinking into ocean. Desert is only a handful of sand held by my daughter. In her palm, she holds small creatures, tracks an ant, a flea moving over each grain. She brings them to places she thinks are safe: an island of driftwood, the knot of a blackberry bush, a continent of grass. Fire ants carried on sticks, potato bugs scooped into the crease of a newspaper. She tries to help them before the patterns of tides reach their lives. She knows about families who fold together like hands, a horizon of tanks moving forward. Here war is only newsprint. How easy it is not to think about it as we sleep beneath our quiet sky, slip ourselves into foam, neglectful waves appearing endless.© Kelli Russell Agodon
Previously published in Poets Against the War Anthology (Nation Books)