When We Speak

Remember when you said the word war
and it was like you had started one.
She was in tears
as if you were both walking
through the rubble.

Instead of the broken sidewalk
where you walk near the park
she takes you to the swings
up in the air.
You say the word war,

without understanding what it means.
You have spent
so much of your short life up in the air.
Your feet almost
touch the blue sky.

She said she remembered a gray
sky. Somewhere a red ribbon
was fluttering.
The blood of our beating hearts.