THEY WILL NEVER RETURN
http://www.maverickmagazine.com/articles/221/1/THEY-WILL-NEVER-RETURN/Page1.html
Jefferson Adams
Jefferson Adams is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. His
poems, essays, and photographs have appeared in Antioch Review, Blue
Mesa Review, CALIBAN, Hayden's Ferry Review, Huffington Post, the
Mississippi Review, and Slate among others.
By Jefferson Adams
Published on 10/6/2003
Our brothers and our sisters in Iraq
Our children, are gone
and will never return.
Their bodies will come back
With their hearts blown out
Or they will come back
Our children, are gone
and will never return.
Their bodies will come back
With their hearts blown out
Or they will come back
Our brothers and our sisters in Iraq
Our children, are gone
and will never return.
Their bodies will come back
With their hearts blown out
Or they will come back
With their minds blown out
Or their souls blown out
& we’ll either bury them and cry
Our tears and say goodbye
And feel bad from time to time
Or we’ll kid ourselves
That someone will be there
Their whole long miserable lives
To help them straighten back out
Knowing all along it won’t be us
Or thinking it will, wanting it to be
Until someone mentions time
& money, until it becomes clear
That from our first act of violence
To our last, we sold them out
Worse than we could ever bear
To face, much less admit:
They might come back, but
Our brothers and our sisters in Iraq
Our children, are gone
And will never return.
Copyright © Jefferson Adams, 2003. All Rights Reserved.
Our children, are gone
and will never return.
Their bodies will come back
With their hearts blown out
Or they will come back
With their minds blown out
Or their souls blown out
& we’ll either bury them and cry
Our tears and say goodbye
And feel bad from time to time
Or we’ll kid ourselves
That someone will be there
Their whole long miserable lives
To help them straighten back out
Knowing all along it won’t be us
Or thinking it will, wanting it to be
Until someone mentions time
& money, until it becomes clear
That from our first act of violence
To our last, we sold them out
Worse than we could ever bear
To face, much less admit:
They might come back, but
Our brothers and our sisters in Iraq
Our children, are gone
And will never return.
Copyright © Jefferson Adams, 2003. All Rights Reserved.