The Meaning of the Thing - Jim Culleny

The Meaning of the Thing
—May 8, 1945

Suddenly Mom ran out the door,
she’d yanked it’s stubborn latch-side free
bolting into open air
thick with sirens, bells,
the horns of cars, ecstatic yells,
everything that blew that May day free,
crammed with audible relief,
cacophonous confetti,
in a joyous requiem for war:
the death of hell

Mom sobbed kneeling in the drive
and thanked the god who’d just undone
his bloody recklessness by fiat & surprise,
suddenly, in May— coincidental with
when life re-bounds

and I said, Mom, what’s wrong,
what are you crying for?

—and she: It’s done!

—and I: What’s done?

—and she: the War!

…… as if I’d known the meaning
of the thing at four


Jim Culleny is the Poetry Editor of  3 Quarks Daily