I’m sleeping
in the Philadelphia Navy Yard
tonight. 

There’s a rusting aircraft carrier
hulking in the dark outside the window.
It reminds me of childhood,
of Vietnam on TV,
of spacecraft splashdowns.

When I was eight
I went on a field trip
to an aircraft carrier
whose name was "USS Essex,"
big enough to fill my head for years,
and I wanted to be a sailor,
a soldier, a warrior of any kind.

Tonight 
I’m that kid again, no longer the pacifist
even when faced with how stark and ruined
my dream has become,
and still I love it, yes,
I want to scale the fence and climb this one,
whispering its name: "USS Ranger,
USS Ranger, Ranger, Ranger…"

Somewhere in the Persian Gulf
or Arabian Sea, my niece is afloat
on a ship like these, helping planes
rise from the flight deck.

If I can stay up till midnight,
find a mirror,
stare into it
and say her name
three times,
will she come home? 

If she does,
who will she be,
that woman who has gone
to war?