Kyle Hemmings
from Fragments from a Soldier's Fiance, Spring, 1918
***
Outside, the hunters are gathering in the dark, beyond the eyes of streetlamps. They are coming, I suspect, for grandmother. They will claim she once took something from them. Or saved something from them. A girl's honor. The soul of a bridesmaid. A coterie of motherless deer. Someone recalled the eclipse of new frontiers. I can’t tell what a new gold rush would feel like anymore. Behind that gilded door, grandmother sleeps half-soundless. Her breaths, even, every other number, the bump and roll of a half-deflated ball and the child has found a new toy. Tick tock. Tick tock.
***
Lately, it's become hard to convince father to do anything. A sputtering motorcar of excuses, he is. On Sundays after vespers, he stands on street corners hedging bets with men in top hats and coat tails. I can only make out the funny contours of their noses as if handles of some kind. At home, their wives are true spinsters mulling over Dutch cookbooks. As for me, I prefer making things from scratch. I have a yellow thumb for what comes canned. I deny that lamb stew once demanded a sacrifice. I shall become flighty and preposterous. Fancy this: if you become light enough, you can float upwards and sideways. But your short breaths will always tend downwards.
***
I'm so terrible at calculations, but I excel in theory. Love me for my compensations. Now here's a problem. How do you get a walrus home in a box? Well, first, you have to make sure the box is big enough and convince the walrus that's it's really a tundra of white space. I'm afraid the walrus might not buy that. So you get the walrus in the box, you and several burly men from the docks, and if none are available, or if they demand payment, then, round up some sprouting boys from the farms, ones whose limbs are willing and free. But the walrus might put up a struggle while in the box. The solution? Simple. Somewhere over the transatlantic trip, the walrus will stop breathing. The problem solves itself. The true Hun is called Waiting. I am waiting inside a box.
***
Don’t be brave, my love. Don’t be brave like the Belgians. There is nobody living in Belgium anymore.