Frances Richey's son, Ben, whom she raised by herself, graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1998. He became a Green Beret, and then went for two tours of duty in Iraq, often on missions that were so secret that he had to remain incommunicado from everyone, including his mother. "The Warrior" is an urgent and intensely personal exploration of what a mother is feeling as her only son goes off to war, as she says goodbye to him, misses him, prays for him, and waits for him to come home. At the book's heart lies a mother's love for her son-a son from whom she feels distant, both literally and metaphorically, for she is opposed to the war in Iraq, but nonetheless realizes that she needs to understand, support, and accept the choices her son has made in his life. A poignant, accessible, and emotionally arresting book told in twenty-eight poems, "The Warrior" speaks to the world of those who wait while their loved ones are in combat or in dangerous circumstances. It is also concerned with the love and pain that constitute close relationships, in particular that between a mother and her son. Richey gives readers a window into a world they might not know, but a world that nonetheless touches all our lives. And "The Warrior" will bring comfort to those who have waited, and are waiting now. Whatever readers feel about the war, all will want to read this moving work for its power and the universal emotions of familial love it portrays with piercing insight.

The Aztec Empire -- The Barn Swallows -- The Movers -- Letters -- The Book of Secrets -- The Warrior -- In a Time of War -- Dream of the Lost Son -- Kill School -- Waiting -- One Week Before Deployment -- Thetis -- Mourning in Sadr City -- Home on Leave -- He Tells Each Story -- School for Commandos -- A Walk Through the Seventh Regiment Armory -- Cab Ride to Chelsea -- The Worst Thing -- Christmas Dinner with my Son in Arlington Heights -- E-Mail from a Secret Location in Iraq: re: The Puppies -- Time Out -- The Powerlifter -- Thor -- Incommunicado -- Collisions -- Four Fragments from the Hall of the Madonnas -- The Canal.