A WAR BABY DREAMS

She and her sons are viewing the Charles from a building on Clarendon Street.

The day is amazingly clear and they lean, silence at the balcony edge.

From B.U. Bridge, jets, streak streak, jets, not fifty feet from the water.

One — the fool — loops; up, loops around; heading down, he does not recover.

The woman, her children, watch “news-in-the-making”, an Air Force jet crashing.

And water thrown to such a height — beautiful, sculptural, female forms.

Blast, tremor the very floor ….. is this what an earthquake is like?

Her oldest boy floats up, feather drifting, out, beyond the balcony rail.

He will fall. She cannot get to him. She cannot control her feet, cannot crawl.

The building abutting spills roomsful of people from 5th or 6th or a 7th floor.

Her second son slides, out of his mother’s sight. More than a jet crash, this is

a bomb. She drops, arms protect head. Trying, — remember:

what have you read about fallout, and how to avoid its effects.