by Nan Meneely
His father taught him how to enclose a spider
so gently in tissues he can carry it live from his room
to a better place outdoors.
He grieves when a chipmunk lies mid-road,
as exquisite as alive, forepaws stretched
toward the brambly green safety ahead.
Knowing he might be too soft, he signs
with the Army to muscle up. But he didn’t bargain
for lethal, a word the recruiters never said.
He’s as certain of this as anything:
if he killed those named his enemies—
Venezuelans in fishing boats oceans away,
brown men working shop floor or field for minimum wage,
protesters armed with sandwiches shouting truth
to power, Somali immigrants fleeing hate—
he would kill the important part of himself,
the part he would fight for in anyone else.
so gently in tissues he can carry it live from his room
to a better place outdoors.
He grieves when a chipmunk lies mid-road,
as exquisite as alive, forepaws stretched
toward the brambly green safety ahead.
Knowing he might be too soft, he signs
with the Army to muscle up. But he didn’t bargain
for lethal, a word the recruiters never said.
He’s as certain of this as anything:
if he killed those named his enemies—
Venezuelans in fishing boats oceans away,
brown men working shop floor or field for minimum wage,
protesters armed with sandwiches shouting truth
to power, Somali immigrants fleeing hate—
he would kill the important part of himself,
the part he would fight for in anyone else.
Author's Note: This matter matters to me. My father, a doctor with the 10th Mountain Division in WWII, joined up enthusiastically but came home with a hatred of war and what we now know as PTSD. Eventually he killed himself. So Hegseth's lethality can be lethal in too many ways.
Nan Meneely’s first book Letter from Italy, 1944 (Antrim House) was noted by the Hartford Courant as one of thirteen important books by Connecticut writers in 2013. It provided the libretto for an oratorio of the same name, composed by Sarah Meneely-Kyder and performed twice by Connecticut choruses and symphony orchestras. Her second book Simple Absence (Antrim House) was nominated for The National Book Award and placed as a grand prize finalist in The Next Generation Indie Awards and the 2021 Eric Hoffer Award. She has been published and rejected by The New Verse News.
