War Never Ends

war never ends IIINight after night I scoop up fish in the shower. I carry them to safety and they swim out of my grown-up hands. In the morning it’s still 1967 with the wretched work of war’s dragons and my father’s black body bag, forsaken imprints of my mother’s red lipstick, a famine in her kitchen with a vinyl pocketbook of failure come down through the years. Night after night I want to show her the saved fish. Instead, I watch men on the sidelines count the fish, string them up, brag about the size and weight, then throw their bones away.

 

 

 

 

 

Gail Hosking is the author of the memoir Snake’s Daughter: the Roads in and out of War (U of Iowa Press) and the poetry chapbook The Tug  (Finishing Line Press). Her work has been anthologized several times and has appeared in such places as The Florida Review, Consequence, Lillith, Post Road, Tar River Poetry, and The Chattahoochee Review. A recent essay was a “most notable” in Best American Essays of 2014. She teaches at Rochester Institute of Technology and holds an MFA from Bennington College.

Photo credit: Sid Nair

5 Responses to “War Never Ends”

  1. Nancy Van Deusen says:

    This is beautiful, haunting and sad.

  2. What a lyrical testimony to the fact that war really doesn’t ever end but trickles into dreams and down generations. Such an evocative, sad, truthful piece.

  3. Deandra says:

    Amazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here! I definitely learned a lot from reading through some of your earlier posts as well and decided to drop a comment on this one!

  4. Joyce Hosking says:

    Gail, I never had the gift of writing poems or books. But I enjoy reading all that you have written. Love, your Cousin Joyce

  5. Joan Ullman says:

    So nice,Gail!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *