Hats

He joined the ROTC just a month ago, and he tells me he wouldn't ever go to war. I sagely nod along to this statement. I have trust.

I watch his grandmother delight at him in his uniform, and I sit quietly on a red velvet couch behind him and I feel a dark blue ocean drowning my heart.

It is loss I fear.

He goes along, and I watch. The boy who is a freethinker; I repeat to myself  ''Please, God, don't let him get brainwashed, I repeat to myself  ''Please, God, don't let him get brainwashed!"

He comes to me in the late night when I am struggling to stay warm in my bed and he asks me to help him take off his boots and I do. His boots are getting dirtier, hi face is gonna get meaner. I will understand my love less and less, should he ever leave! He takes off his army cap and hangs it on the knoolpost in my room. We talk.

When he leaves he forgets his hat. And he calls me to bring it back to him.