What Do You Give the War That Has Everything
At a Glance
Section titled âAt a Glanceâ| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2020-01-01 |
| Journal | New England review |
| Authors | Jehanne Dubrow |
Abstract
Section titled âAbstractâWhat Do You Give the War That Has Everything Jehanne Dubrow (bio) The first year, we were told, is always the most difficult, a neutral zone of afternoons and nights. Dear war, we said, we are sending ourselves folded inside gilded envelopesâ we have stamped your name in wax. By the second year, weâd learned to rip the bedsheets into strips for bandages. This is the gift of cotton, we said, that it soaks whatever seeps. Soon there was leather. Soon there was linen, the wood we burned when supplies were cut to the front. And later, there was iron melted red and molded into spears, the fruit-shape of grenades. In the seventh year, we gave the war a heavy blanket made of wool. Never mind, we said, the smell of other bodies in the folds. We forgot the year of bronze. Year nine, we offered up the decorative, a piece of pottery painted with a chariot, a dead king [End Page 8] dragging through the dirt. The war broke our present into shards. After that, were years of tin and steel, the tear of silk like a flag the horses trample on, then lace as with the tender bodice of a girl. In the fourteenth year, there was ivory, because why not pull down the giants of the world. And next a crystal cup for drinking victory, a porcelain plate to serve a traitorâs head. In year twenty-five, we engraved the war on silver. This is costing us too much, we said. We barely counted then, the years of pearl and coral, the ruby like a puncture wound, the poison blue of sapphire set in gold. The war took anything we had to give. Decades on, we gave emeralds for the green of some forgotten field. We gave the war a diamond, to honor its cleave and glittering, its dreadful way of capturing the light. [End Page 9] Jehanne Dubrow Jehanne Dubrow is the author of seven poetry collections, most recently American Samizdat (Diode Editions, 2019), and a book of creative nonfiction, throughsmoke: an essay in notes (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her eighth collection of poems, Simple Machines, won the Richard Wilbur Poetry Award and will be published by the University of Evansville Press in 2020. Her ninth book of poems, Wild Kingdom, is forthcoming from Louisiana State University Press in 2021. Her work has appeared in Poetry, New England Review, and Southern Review. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Texas. Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications