I set out for a time adrift.
This body, this mind are not all spent.
Its scarred and lovely, warm and pure.
I’ve set out for a time, adrift.
Forgetting all but litanies of self-reproach.
Forgetting all but empty words.
Forgetting all but mundane tasks.
I’ve set out for a time, adrift.
Watching from the back to see where I’ll float.
Each day bending, dripping like the last.
Each day further from the shore,
further from the place I was.
Aging as I go.
I set out for a time, adrift.
Forgetting where my compass lies.
I set out into the deep wide ocean.
Deep and blue and stretching wide.
I will not let her pull me under,
blue arms grasping, reaching, pulling.
I am Kali fierce and piercing.
Five sets of arms in all directions.
I can not rest or dream or falter.
Surging on and further on.
I set out for a time, adrift.
I laid down softly for a time contented.
I woke up full and strong and wanting.
I cut out all the black and empty.
I cut out all the dead old glooms.
hot pink lines and swollen scars remain,
I’m healing.
I stood up and placed my foot on water.
I walk, I run, I fly on solid ground.
There are so many military families in our community, I almost feel like the oddball sometimes. The core group of us who are volunteering for the Reindeer Shop are all military except me. At church, all the men our age are military. Sometimes BJay talks about joining the military just to fit in. Its come up more than once. I usually dismiss the idea by reminding BJay that I didn’t sign up for single-parenthood. Well last night on the way home from shopping in Fayetteville BJay mentioned AGAIN something about joining the military and I finally asked him if he was serious. He said that he was, kind of. ??? So I opened up for discussion with the kids. “Who wants Daddy to be in the Army?” Hila piped up in the back seat, “I do! My friend Jacqualine’s dad is in the army!” I then asked, “Hila why do you want Daddy to be in the army?”
“Because they help children.”
BJay then asked Hila how she knew that men in the army helped children and she said,
“Remember when we went to the movies and that movie came on about the army?”
