they are doing their best to break our spirit.

Papa reads it out loud and says, Good luck to them.

My sister’s spirit has always been unbreakable.

He studies me. You’re a lot like her, Muriel.

I’m not so sure. Papa thinks I’m strong because

I speak up for my beliefs—but as the war

gets louder all around us, I’m becoming quieter.

If I were in Washington right now, even though

I’m certain that Aunt Vera and her friends

are in the right, I’m pretty sure I’d drop the banner

in the street and slink away before

I’d let them haul me off to prison.

Names / Ollie

Names

Ollie

Dig deeper, men, they tell us.

We’ve been digging five feet deep

through mud, with blisters on our hands, and

still it’s raining and the officers command us: Keep

on digging. So we do. The walls of this hellhole are all that

stand between us and the gunfire of the enemy. I’m digging furiously,

trying to keep up with Victor, Pete, and Phil. Trying not to think about the

dying men we carried on a makeshift stretcher to the ambulance last night,

and whether they made it to the Red Cross tent. What were their names?

Ron and James, I think, and Douglas. Less than a week ago I said to

Phil, Tell me your girlfriend’s name, and I’ll remember it. If

you … you know … I’ll write her a letter. He said,

Maeve McGill, in Omaha. What about you,

kid? Emma, I thought. No one, I said.

Against the Dark Space / Muriel

Against the Dark Space

Muriel

Look, Muriel, five peas in this pod—taste them.

Saturday afternoon, Grace and I are in the garden

picking the late summer peas. The sun is warm but not

too hot, the peas are bursting from their pods,

and Grace is being good, helping with the work

without complaining. We need her to be more

grown-up than usual, more than she probably feels;

she sets her doll, Eliza Jane, at the end of each row

and as she works, she looks up constantly to show me

and Eliza Jane how many peas she’s picked

(besides the ones she’s eating). And so it

happens that it’s Grace who sees him first—

the man in uniform, turning in our lane.

I see everything at once—Grace’s curiosity,

until she sees my face shift from calm

to terror, and instantly her face reflects my own.

The man’s slow walk, slower still as he approaches.

The paper in his hand. White against his clean

blue uniform. (Against the dark space

of the letters Ollie has not written. Why?)

Yesterday, I received a short letter from Frank,

and I see that, too, like a flash of lightning

across this suddenly dark place.

Grace, I say, go inside and stay there.

Tell Mama to come out. Tell her …