New Year’s Day 2019 we look
toward the months to come,
alert as a widow in the night, 1945,
an empty school on the hill,
spy glasses aimed at the dark sky,
silhouettes of planes, ours and theirs,
posted on the wall—Gram’s own
small part in a big war.
While she scanned the sky at risk
over the east coast of America,
I slept on a folding cot. Then
on our walk home before dawn—
a bull loose in the road. We escape
over a stone wall.
This morning I look for danger
on the small screen, third hand news
or thirtieth, never as real
as that woman in the high window.
Still, I watch for what might be
flying our way…