Melissa Holm Shoemake
Atlas Child
My mother reminds me God has not given us
a spirit of fear, tells me not to be afraid of the war;
we will win. Demons lurk in the bodies of our enemies who kill,
steal, and destroy, but no weapon formed against us shall prosper.
All she knows is to speak the scriptures written on her tongue
every morning in the dark of my soldier father’s absence.
If the sea swells at the furthest and closest points to the moon,
then I hold myself in low tide between their distance.
He is far and may be dying. She is near and always praying.
She sprays the lawn for fire ants, sets and clears and the mouse
traps, grills meats over mesquite from the front yard tree.
I hear myself question him on the overseas landline delay
and he commands me not to be sad. My child-sized throat
is stuffed so full of morals I’m silent in agreement.
He writes in his next letter to be a good girl for my mother,
change my baby sister’s diapers, don’t talk too much
in class and get straight A’s. I’m seven so he draws a cartoon
below his signature. Don’t be thirsty, I read between the lines.
On the day of his homecoming ceremony, the division marches
into a lofty gym on base in desert battle dress. The commanders
hold a rope between militant and civil, soldiers and family.
In unison they bark one final command. The rope drops at ease.
The ocean tides I’ve held roll.
“This is a companion poem to another poem I wrote, ‘Atlas Mother’, and reflects on the period of time my father served in the Gulf War as a career soldier in the Army. I was a 7-year-old at the time and very much felt the gravity of the situation in my home and the role I was expected to play, which was no longer that of a child.” —Melissa Holm Shoemake
Melissa Holm Shoemake lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband and two sons where she works in college administration at Emory University. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Mississippi and her poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies including The Southern Humanities Review, The Shore, Harpur Palate, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology and Best New Poets 2024. Her chapbook, Ab.Sin.The., is available from Dancing Girl Press.