The endless war of enduring

Flags And Boxes

She never thought in all her life that she
would be a widow. It is a word delivered
home in a flag-draped box let gently down
from a plane as if the moving any faster
might wake up whatever was inside.

Whatever was inside was her husband,
what remained of him, what she cannot
bear to behold, nor will they allow it.
So she thinks of him asleep inside,
a deserved nap after so long a flight.



She might tell him later that one of their
daughters made a coming home picture
for him, a plane blazing across a lemon-
drop sun, coming from some place with
a long funny name, jetting toward a heart
laid out in favorite colors on the ground.

The two men who came up the walk only
days before never got to see that picture.
They saw only its borders, the nubbed
crayons scattered on a table they sat
across a wife from, a wife who would
unwillingly trade one W word for another.

These are the tales of flags and boxes,
presidents who can’t be there themselves,
grateful nations who might pause along
a road waving stars and stripes before
returning to the skirmish of living every
day, the endless war of enduring it all.

Joseph Gallo
October 9, 2011