Poem for National Poetry Month--"Storm Son"

With all the turmoil and political posturing toward more war while we're yet engaged in a continuing war for the longest time in our nation's history, I thought I would post this poem I wrote when my oldest son's unit was called up, and he was pulled out of his freshman year in college for Desert Storm. He's older now, running a successful business of his own after earlier years of detour caused by this interruption in his higher education, but I remember vividly how I felt when he was called to go to a war many of us believed was unnecessary.

STORM SON

I almost died giving him life,

bled on the table for an hour after

his head forced its way out between my legs

while they wheeled me to the delivery room.

In fifth grade, he played football, youngest

on the field, punched holes

in the line of defense

till they tackled him and kicked in his ribs.

At sixteen, two men mugged him

on payday. He slugged the one

who took his cash. The other

slashed his arm open

before they fled. Dripping blood,

he woke me to take him for stitches.

He joined the Reserves, like most of the others

on the Fast Track in his AIT,

for college money, poor man’s financial aid.

Before he joined, we talked

about war. Lifelong activist, I warned him

they’d call and he’d have to go.

He wasn’t gung-ho, just willing to pay

the price to go to school.

When he entered college last semester,

I watched him discover

learning’s delights. He planned to apply

for scholarships, decided he wanted to teach

physics, just starting

to do what I always

knew he could. Nineteen,

he looks twenty-five

to strangers who think he’s my brother.

To me, he still

looks too damn young

to kill or die in the desert.

Published in Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press)