I am undone by the specter of war, 

high-sounding as the words may be 

they signal my inability to function, 

walking around the house in nightgown, 

socks, old slippers with bent toes, 

and hurried meals of salad or a warmed-up 

soup or peanut butter directly from the jar, 

no bread, just one old spoon for hunger 

cravings. I cannot understand how others 

walk about, handle their jobs, shovel 

their driveways, clean out the litter box. 

I want control, a promise of tomorrow, 

an end to bullies and their threats 

and I am one of many, but for me 

it is compulsion, I walk and look at people 

at the school, the store, the service station 

much as when my father died and evening 

followed morning despite grief. I have  

two eggs left and a slice of wholewheat bread 

and half a tank of regular, it’s snowing 

once again since dawn, five or six inches. 

I wish for calm or tea with honey or an orgy 

of impolitest screams, or tears, or anything.

 (written in the Poconos before the war…)