Summer (’15)
In the capital the women are fasting.
50 days for the 50 day war
in a white tent on burning pavement
outside the prime minister’s residence.
Mid-afternoon heat seals them in
its unforgiving. Crouching beside them
all the while, the broad-backed presence
of absent sons, until they are again
in the dark, and in their ear over the slender
phone line his dust-chapped lips
keep repeating it will never will it never
end a young man weeping
as his mother of lies on the other
side promises otherwise, coaxing
hope over the distance, until rotored winds
of night war carry him away, and
we stay, rooted on summer pavement
in afternoon haze, stunned sun
flooding heart and stone, with our own
sorrow as it flows
down indifferent streets through yet another
summer of blood.
Copyright Credit: Rachel Tziva Back, "Summer '15" from What Use is Poetry, the Poet is Asking. Copyright © 2019 by Rachel Tziva Back. Reprinted by permission of Rachel Tziva Back.