SHE CRADLED A TODDLER
She cradled a toddler Whose rubbery Legs dangled Onto her lap of combat fatigues Like a pair of drowsy willow branches Along a gravel road in Georgia And smiled like Mona Lisa The way she did in her high school yearbook Which beneath her picture read: “Most likely to succeed.” Beneath her most recent Instagram post she wrote, “I love my job.” It was her instinct almost from birth To protect things. An orphaned dandelion A fallen nestling An abandoned heart Her own shadow Which clung to the hemisphere of her civilian skirt Like the someday child at Abbey Gate. It was Sgt. Gee’s job That morning To escort evacuees Onto the bird Whose wings would fly them To a future that she would Never cook barefoot in Never swirl to a country song Never rest her head on the shoulder of her Marine husband Who will instead escort her to the Field of folded flags and silent white crosses Where soldiers sleep In a nursery of soil And wait to be remembered Like her fellow Sargea...