When my brother came home from war <br />he carried his left arm in a black sling <br />but assured us most of it was still there. <br />Spring was late, the trees forgot to leaf out. <br /> <br />I stood in a long line waiting for bread. <br />The woman behind me said it was shameless, <br />someone as strong as I still home, still intact <br />while her Michael was burning to death. <br /> <br />Yes, she could feel the fire, could smell <br />his pain all the way from Tarawa– <br />or was it Midway?–and he so young, <br />younger than I, who was only fourteen, <br /> <br />taller, more handsome in his white uniform <br />turning slowly gray the way unprimed wood <br />grays slowly in the grate when the flames <br />sputter and die. “I think I’m going mad,” <br /> <br />she said when I turned to face her. She placed <br />both hands on my shoulders, kissed each eyelid, <br />hugged me to her breasts and whispered wetly <br />in my bad ear words I’d never heard before. <br /> <br />When I got home my brother ate the bread <br />carefully one slice at a time until <br />nothing was left but a blank plate. “Did you see her,” <br />he asked, “the woman in hell, Michael’s wife?” <br /> <br />That afternoon I walked the crowded streets <br />looking for something I couldn’t name, <br />something familiar, a face or a voice or less, <br />but not these shards of ash that fell from heaven.<br /><br />Philip Levine<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/during-the-war/
