No one marries during war,
I’m told and yet I’m married to the thought
of you returning home to marry me
to my former self. The war is everywhere
at once. Each eggplant that I pick
is ripe and sun-dark in its own inviolable
skin. Except there is no inviolable anything
And you’ve been home now for a year.
About Elyse: According to the Poetry Society of America’s website Clamor, (written about Elyse Fenton, and where this poem comes from) contain a discernible narrative and recognizable characters. The poems are about a woman waiting for a man to return from war and about what life is like for her when he returns.
Reading this poem I assumed that Elyse is waiting for her husband come back home, but at the end “you’ve now been home now for a year.” Elyse has her husband home, but what happened? Why is she still waiting? PTSD is a very popular topic in the news, I am not sure what Elyse husband struggled with when he came home, but from the poem I think he came home different than when he left. You don’t have to have PTSD to have war and military experiences change you. I like this poem because it shows how the military experience just isn’t about the service member, it affects the family too. Elyse has waited for her husband to come home from war, he came home, and yet she is still waiting for him to come home.
I’m told and yet I’m married to the thought
of you returning home to marry me
to my former self. The war is everywhere
at once. Each eggplant that I pick
is ripe and sun-dark in its own inviolable
skin. Except there is no inviolable anything
And you’ve been home now for a year.
About Elyse: According to the Poetry Society of America’s website Clamor, (written about Elyse Fenton, and where this poem comes from) contain a discernible narrative and recognizable characters. The poems are about a woman waiting for a man to return from war and about what life is like for her when he returns.
Reading this poem I assumed that Elyse is waiting for her husband come back home, but at the end “you’ve now been home now for a year.” Elyse has her husband home, but what happened? Why is she still waiting? PTSD is a very popular topic in the news, I am not sure what Elyse husband struggled with when he came home, but from the poem I think he came home different than when he left. You don’t have to have PTSD to have war and military experiences change you. I like this poem because it shows how the military experience just isn’t about the service member, it affects the family too. Elyse has waited for her husband to come home from war, he came home, and yet she is still waiting for him to come home.