Maybe Hope, Maybe Love, Let's Make Both Poem by Jayne McGaughey

There's a chance

We'll be in our bedrooms after the war
making love until we can't feel the pain anymore
the warmth of skin to skin
will burn the dirt of death away
the sky will turn blue again
we'll come back home
but not in a box

We'll be grateful to know and grateful to see the old friends
that went off to war
unlike the change in our pasts
we'll hold to future tenses
abbreviating hurts and letting go of old conversations

So when you're on the phone
saying love you and whispering goodbye
about to let your mouth breathe a lie
hold that tear back this time
because there's a box of hope on your front stoop

There's that saying you love
especially when you're alone and don't know which way to go
”tomorrow is another day”
well, guess what, there's news
tomorrow might just be another life
and another hue

There's a chance
a definite chance
that there will be no more drowning or suffocating
not here
not anymore
there's a chance
this could be true
and time could stop lying
and give us future tenses

We could think of there and not here
forever could change
and with it we would go
stepping out of the present as if they were dirty clothes

Of course, like everything else,

Time will tell
both our mistakes
and where we will go

But there is a chance,

In a few years
the war will be over
and we'll be making love
kissing the scars and numbing the pain of past mistakes
til we're too tired
to do anything but sleep

It's not the peace we're wanting
it's to not be alone
it's to stop wanting and know

There's a chance
the sky will turn blue again
and the soldiers will come home
but not in boxes

If they do
we'll make love til there's nothing left in the world
but that beautiful sky blue

There's a good chance
that peace won't rest
that pain won't leave
and we'll be left to hold on our own

But if they do
we'll be ready to love

And we'll open those boxes of hope