before I say things I’ll regret—and then Grace,

sitting quietly, combing out the tangles in

Eliza Jane’s long hair, looks around

at all of us. Maybe Mama could stay home,

she says, and Muriel could go.

Crazy Ideas / Muriel

Crazy Ideas

Muriel

Sometimes the most obvious idea remains

hidden, and when it shows itself like this,

we all wonder how we missed it.

Within a day, it’s settled: I’ll take the train

to Washington, D.C., next Tuesday, meet

Aunt Vera and travel home with her.

She’ll come here and rest for a few days,

then continue on her own, back to Chicago.

Papa jokes about Aunt Vera’s friends: Radicals,

freethinkers—be careful not to come home with too

many crazy ideas, Muriel. He’s smiling, but does he

mean it, too? I’d bet anything he had to convince Mama,

and now he’s warning me about her worries.

Emma has come for supper (without her parents—

Not quite yet, she said to Mama). Sitting between

Grace and Ollie, she heartily approves.

Go ahead, Muriel—I can help with your chores

while you’re away. And Grace chimes in,

I will, too, Muriel. Go to Washington! Come home

with all the crazy ideas you want. A shadow

passes over Ollie’s face, but he says nothing

at the time—it’s only later, after we’ve walked

home with Emma, and the two of us are coming back

together, that I realize how worried Ollie is,

how much he counts on me since he’s been home.

I’ll only be gone a week, I try to reassure him.

I know, he says. It’s just that you’re the only one

who lets me talk about what happened

over there. He pauses at the gate,

leans his weight against it, glances

up at me—yes, he sees, I’m listening.

I’m starting to remember things, he tells me.

Ollie’s Patchwork Story / Muriel

Ollie’s Patchwork Story

Muriel

A rat with a man’s face, Ollie says. Or a man

with the face of a rat. I don’t know which.

I hated those filthy rats. They scurried

through the trenches, tried to chew into

our rations, got into our bedrolls.

Then one night, I was eating, and I looked

up to see one staring at me. I saw its hunger,

and I was hungry, too, and then in that same

moment, a man behind me threw a stone

and hit it, and it leaped into the air and

tried to run and couldn’t, and it curled up

and died. Ollie is struggling not to cry;

he’s determined to say what he can see

while he can see it. There was a tank

rolling toward us—was it that same day?

It’s all packed together in my mind, it’s hard

to separate. The nurse in the army hospital

told me I carried my buddy Phil out