A Pentagon Official Drafts A Condolence Letter
By Tom Daley
[Her tomboy taunts all stilled.] No note of praise
that I might shape could lull your shock or gloom.
Your daughter fell [to find the End of Days.
She christens Armageddon with her wounds.]
She cooled to mercy under desert rain.
She gave no cry. How could she, ambushed so?
We know she died before a slingshot pain
afforded her the spur [and grace] to show
a courage pledged in camaraderie.
[If thin mistakes have tipped her towards her doom,
they will not hedge her death’s audacity.]
The fanatic, from whose belt ball bearings [bloomed,
conceived no more or less of hope than she.
Their end adheres our time to time’s mortality.]
reciprocity
Tom Daley has poems published or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including Fence, Diagram, Barrow Street, Massachusetts Review, In Posse Review, Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, 32 Poems and Poetry Ireland Review, and has been anthologized in Hacks: The Grub Street Anthology, Unlocking the Poem, and the Poets for Haiti anthology. He is a past recipient of the Charles and Fanny Fay Wood Academy of American Poets poetry prize. His manuscript, Shim, was a finalist in The Poetry Foundation’s Emily Dickinson First Book Award.
The form of this poem is engaging. There is a poem within a poem that emerges through the visual devices employed by the poet. If the reader reads only what is in the parentheses, the likely thoughts of the family are revealed:
(Her tomboy taunts are stilled.)/to find the End of Days./She christens Armagedon with her wounds.)/(and grace)/(If thin* mistakes have tipped her towards her doom,/they will not hedge her death’s audacity.) (bloomed, conceived no more or less of hope than she./Their end adheres our time to time’s mortality.)
How dare she die—be killed— expressed with somber pathos!
The remainder of the poem are the sentiments of the Pentagon writing the letter:
No note of praise/that I might shape could lull your shock or gloom./
Your daughter fell./ She cooled to mercy under desert rain./She gave no cry. How could she ambushed so?/We know she died before a slingshot pain/ afforded her the spur to show a courage pledged in comaraderie./The fanatic, from whose belt ball bearings reciprocity.*
The very clever form conveys that war is war—reciprocity— the bottom line. She died quickly in an ambush. She didn’t suffer. She had no opportunity to demonstrate any more courage.
*thin and reciprocity crossed out in poem.
The subtle and effective rhyme is wonderful: e.g. audacity, reciprocity; rain, pain; doom, bloomed; and several more—really musical.
I admire the economy of language and effectiveness of form in this poem.