by Pamela Main
Seems everyone’s earned it these days, PTSD —
even the dog, my favorite,
traumatized one July 4, a neighbor
setting off fireworks an hour straight.
Before the fear of others came to plague us,
we gathered outside to watch,
breathing the night air, breathing each other.
Didn’t get the dogs in soon enough. One
wormed his way from my arms and stayed lost
for hours, though we called him,
his name unheard in the falling sky.
Small and white, he rabbit-ran half a mile, towards the light
of a convenience store. A Good Samaritan
found and returned him. Shaken but alive, lucky but
forever afraid of noise and sky. Yet
he rests well between summer’s thunderstorms.
“He thought he was on the battlefield,” my friend said,
meaning the dog who fled.
Her son, just returned from Afghanistan,
the war imagery understandable.
She confessed — every time
she saw a woman in a burka
she broke out in cold sweat, imagined
a bomb stashed beneath folds of cloth,
and maybe not a woman at all
but a man, cross dressing, and maybe
not a bomb but a gun aimed at her firstborn.
She recalled how her son, bored on a day off
shopped the bazaars of Baghdad,
mailed home parcels of ugly clothes and lovely rugs
that reeked of gunpowder. Blown across 6000 miles, the
scent made her pause and choose to smile
in the middle of her busy day —
her boy hated to shop.
And my father, gunner in the belly of an American plane,
once aimed at haystacks in North Korea,
and then returned to Pennsylvania,
unlike his bunkmates, alive,
sullen and sleepy. In that stillness his only child was born.
“It was never called anything back then,” my mother recalled.
“Maybe shell shock.”
Long divorced, he’s come back again.
Old, ill, his coughs
cut through the nights
like a machete or gunshot.
The daylight holds us in its mercy–
we drive the countrysides of his youth
and eat hushed lunches beneath grown-up trees.
Photo by Axel Grollemund from Pexels
Beautifully done! Love the strong, haunting imagery and that last line…
Thank you so much! Appreciate it!
Drawn in with contemplative observations, disparate and connected. Absorbing and stirring imagery.
Thank you, Karen!
I love it, Pamela. You convey so well the triggering of fear, the anxiety that plagues even our pets these days, that moves across generations, impacting not only the returned soldiers, but all of us. So beautiful. Thank you.
Thanks for your close reading! Appreciate it!
Impressive, the movement in The Returned from a typical 4th of July celebration, to Afghanistan in a time of war and back, to Korean during the Korean War and back. Impressive in the way Pamela weaves together much of American’s recent history of trauma. Impressive in the way she brings that trauma close, makes it real, makes it personal.
Great comments! Appreciate them!
such a strong evocative poem — it leaves me breathless at the end. A deep thread ties together dog, son and father. Whew.
Well done! What an insightful and moving piece. Dead on with the experience of those of us who suffer from PTSD. Full perceptive observations, insight and impressive detailed descriptions. The piece appeals to all the senses: smell, touch, sight and sound which draws the reader in.
Thank you so much! Appreciate it!
Lovely, Pam
Marietta
Thank you so much! Appreciate it!
I loved this poem Pamela, such powerful imagery!
Thank you! I’m glad it made an impression!
Pam, this is beautifully written.
Very profound for the times we live in. Beautifully written.
Thanks, Sue!