KILL  SCHOOL

That was the summer he rappelled

down mountains on rope

that from a distance looked thin

as the dragline of a spider,

barely visible, the tension

he descended

into the made-up

state of Pineland

with soldiers from his class.

They started with a rabbit,

and since my son was the only one

who’d never hunted,

he went first.  He described it:

moonlight, the softness

of fur, another pulse

against his chest.

The trainer showed him

how to rock the rabbit

like a baby in his arms,

faster and faster,

until every sinew surrendered

and he smashed its head into a tree.

They make a little squeaking sound,

he said.  They cry.

He drove as he told me:

You said you wanted to know.

I didn’t ask how he felt.

Maybe I should have,

but I was biting

off the skin from my lips,

looking out

beyond the glittering line

of traffic flying

past us in the dark.

The End

A poem from THE WARRIOR

{A Mother's Story of a Son at War}

by Frances Richey