One Evening’s News By Michelle Pond

I walked into the kitchen with the newspaper in my hand.
My mother knew right away that something was wrong.
“You’re white as a ghost, “ she said.
When I flipped the Local section over, the headline screamed.
“Tonawanda Man Killed in Viet Nam.”
The paper had it wrong.
He wasn’t a man.
He was the boy who took my sister to a school dance.