"Christmas, 1943..."

it was so bitterly cold that winter of 1943
the snow fell heavy and icicles reached so near the
ground that father rose earlier than usual each morning
just to knock them free so we would be safe as we
left for school while the sky was still dark and
you could see your breath in the air that hovered
over the frozen days of waiting for word from the front

brothers, fathers, uncles, cousins were not coming in
from the cold each night with empty lunch pails after
a long day at the factory and a short stop by the pub
they were not stomping snow off of work boots and placing
icy fingers and chafed hands on mother's hot cheeks as
she stood over a steaming pot of something warm and savory

we tried to imagine the nights they faced, the color of
darkness over paris, berlin, places with names we couldn't
even find on maps in the encyclopedia or on globes
that once delighted and now only spin as children search
for clues about a brother's whereabouts, a father's postmark

they do not know that I too wait for word from a boy i met
on the train that day not long ago when the world felt mine
and lilacs bloomed and the air was sweet with promise of
letters from the front and a soldier's smile over coffee

i check the floor beneath the mail slot and wonder each night
if a letter came but slipped beneath the edge of mother's
chair or worked its way into the cracks between floorboards
I rise from bed and tiptoe down the stairs to where
the cold breathes through window casements and under doorjambs,

but there is no envelope, no return address that I cannot find
on map or globe no postmark from a place where I can dream of going to care for him in a field hospital or red cross
tent beneath a cold starless winter sky

and so i weep and my tears pool in the folds of my bed jacket
until I fall asleep bathed in hope that a boy named billy
is dreaming I am curled beneath the mail slot
waiting for a love letter filled with tomorrow's promises -- 
a letter from far away for a girl back home