from out of the depths of my yellow legal pads

Guts (working title)

I am a mother who has just left her children.
Soon, I will hit the highway,
head north,
set up camp at Fort Ticonderoga.
I am not a soldier,
But a mercenary.
I am at war for peace.
I am fighting for love,
for sneakers tied with two hands on the laces,
for two kids,
six cats,
a turtle, a toad, and a handful of fish.
I will disguise myself
as a camp follower, a suttler,
set up my white tent,
put on my dusty dress, my cinched
bonnet, bring the soldiers
hot rum and biscuits.
Not a hair
will shoot out from my cap.
I will teach soldiers’
children to draw pictures
of bridges and canons,
bloody bodies and bayonets.
I will wash the paint from my hands,
wash the paint from wounded
Indians’ wailing faces, by the shores of Lake Champlain.
I am a mother who leaves her children
almost every day.
Soon I will arrive.
Soon the war will be over,
the revolution just begun.


* This poem was written from a simple prompt at a workshop: tell a lie.