every day when he walks by: 20,000,000

AMERICAN WOMEN ARE NOT SELF-GOVERNED.

It goes further than they’ve gone before,

true, but they have a point. Mama is outraged:

What do they expect? It’s a slap in the face

to all our boys and everything we’re fighting

for. Ollie, her own nephew, is on his way

to fight the Germans—those women are undermining

him, and Frank, and all our boys. It isn’t right.

If you ask me, she says (though no one has), Vera

should expect exactly this, and worse. She looks at me,

daring me to disagree. I hold out my hand to Papa

for the letter. How badly was she injured?

He gives it to me. Not badly enough to keep her

off the picket line long enough to stay out of prison.

Now she’s been arrested. I read the scribbled note

on the outside of the envelope: “I’m giving this

to Ruby Madsen, to mail to you. I don’t expect

I’ll be writing any letters for a few weeks.”

Bluebird / Emma

Bluebird

Emma

Saturday afternoon. A bluebird

flies against our kitchen window. Mother

says, Keep that window closed! Don’t let it in.

When I go out to look beneath the window, I find

the bird on the ground, stunned but warm, still living.

I hold it in my hands and sing a lullaby, some psalms,

and other songs I know by heart, until its wings spread

against my hands, and it flies. I go on kneading bread,

the bluebird’s heartbeat in my fingertips, my palms.

This evening, slicing into the fresh loaf, I’m giving

some to Father (pumpernickel, his favorite kind)

when a warm breeze moves across my skin.

Look: the bluebird, on the screen. Neither

Mother nor I breathe, or say a word.

In the Night, Through Towns / Ollie

In the Night, Through Towns

Ollie

Dread weighs me down

like a rain-soaked wool jacket.

We move in the night, through towns

where little girls like Grace must be asleep

in their warm beds, through countryside where

cats toss mice around in dark corners of the barns.

One thing bothers me: I don’t know the overall plan.

None of us do. They’re moving us to the battlefront,

that’s obvious. I’m sure they have a strategy for us to

win; maybe they’ll fill us in. To tell the truth, I don’t

care as much about their lofty goals as I do about

seeing my family again—there’s a man on a

bike, pedaling into morning, bringing

bread home to his family, I bet.

A Few Eggs, Five Peaches, All the Peas / September 1917

A Few Eggs, Five Peaches, All the Peas

September 1917

Restless / Muriel

Restless

Muriel

I’m glad not to be going to school this year—no more

homework, no more Mr. Sander, no more poetry

to memorize or history to learn or essays to