Ellis Elliott: I Don't Know How to Write About War

Inspired by Making a Fist by Naomi Shihab Nye, poem prompt from Bewilderness Writing. 

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I Don’t Know How to Write About War

by Ellis Elliott

I couldn’t tell you her name,

only describe the purple pompoms

on her stocking cap like grape bubblegum

ears, and the bright polka-dots 

on her zipped-up coat. 

I couldn’t tell you where the train station is,

only that her small fist is tight around

her mothers two fingers and one canvas

shoe is unlaced.

I can’t tell you that she will wake someday

to police passing the window of her third floor

walk-up, and she will think they are the wail 

of air-raid sirens.

I can’t tell you her breath will come shallow

and ratchet like a pinball in her chest 

as she sits straight up, disoriented.

I can’t tell you she will think she is back 

underground, in the windowless room 

of concrete walls, or how she will notice 

how her fingernails have cut half-moons

into the flesh of her palm as her clenched

fist finally loosens.