Read Online Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin Powers - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kevin Powers
Ads: Link
no way of explaining
what it means to be mortared, I lie
in a courtyard eight thousand miles distant
and remember sheâs watching as she has been
each morning since I promised not to die.
 Â
I open my body. She shakes out the heat
of the kettle, watches steam rise; ascending, diffusingâ
she cannot tell and would not if she could, and remains
in the soil in the four a.m. air beneath six rows
of dogwoods and watches two blooms in one moment:Â
Â
mine, in the dust. She is driving her body
beneath the soil of her garden
as far as she can, not knowing I never
took cover; ears already ringing
yet somehow still hearing her voice
that I held as a child saying never be afraid
 Â
to love everything . She, beneath
the porch light, watches
my body open,
the daylight becoming equal to it.
Death, Mother and Child
Mosul, Iraq, 2004
Kollwitz was right. Death is an etching.
I remember the white Opel being
pulled through the traffic circle on the back of a wrecker,
the woman in the driverâs seat
so brutalized by bullets it was hard to tell her sex.
Her left arm waved unceremoniously
in the stifling heat and I retched,
the hand seemingly saying, I will see
you there . We heard a rumor that a child
was riding in the car with her, had slipped
to the floorboard, but had been killed as well.
The truth has no spare mercy, see. It is this chisel
in the woodblock. It is this black wisp
above the music of a twice-rung bell.
Field Manual
Think not of battles, but rather after,
when the tremor in your right leg
becomes a shake you cannot stop, when the burned manâs
tendoned cheeks are locked into a scream that,
before you sank the bullet in his brain to end it,
had been quite loud. Think of how he still seems to scream.
Think of not caring. Call this ârelief.â
 Â
Think heat waves rising from the dust.
Think days of rest, how the sergeant lays
the .22 into your palm and says the dogs
outside the wire have become a threat
to good order and to discipline:
some boys have taken them as pets, they spread
disease, they bit a colonel preening for a TV crew.
 Â
Think of afternoons in T-shirt and shorts,
the unending sun, the bite of sweat in eyes.
Think of missing so often it becomes absurd.
Think quick pop, yelp, then puckered fur.
Think skinny ribs. Think smell.
Think almost reaching grief, but
not quite getting there.
After Leaving McGuire Veteransâ Hospital for the Last Time
This is the last place youâll ever think
you know. You would be wrong of course.
There is time enough to find
other rooms to be reminded of,
other windows to look out,
chipped sills to lean against
that rub your elbows raw. January
is not so cold here as it is elsewhere,
a little gift. When the wind blows it is
its music you remember, not its chill
as it shakes the empty branches and arrives
wherever wind arrives. Go there then, there.
Follow the long and slender blacktop as
it struggles east along the banks
through sprawling fog not destined
to survive its movement in the morning
toward the sea. And toward the sea
the sound of singing ceases, silences
beginning with a sputter and a cough
as the driver of the truck you hitchhiked in
pulls off, and one more cloud of dust
in your life of clouds of dust disintegrates
as evening settles in. What song is this?
you remember the immigrant clinician asked,
and now again along a shoreline in the night
you realize your life is just a catalog
of methods, every word of it an effort
to stay sane. Count to ten whenever
you begin to shake. If pain of any kind
is felt, take whatever is around
into your hands and squeeze, push
your feet as far as they will go
into the earth. Burial is likely what
youâre after anyway. If itâs unseemly,
these thoughts, or the fact that the last
unstained shirt you wore was on
a Tuesday, a week ago or more, do not
apologize. If youâve earned
what it means to be mortared, I lie
in a courtyard eight thousand miles distant
and remember sheâs watching as she has been
each morning since I promised not to die.
 Â
I open my body. She shakes out the heat
of the kettle, watches steam rise; ascending, diffusingâ
she cannot tell and would not if she could, and remains
in the soil in the four a.m. air beneath six rows
of dogwoods and watches two blooms in one moment:Â
Â
mine, in the dust. She is driving her body
beneath the soil of her garden
as far as she can, not knowing I never
took cover; ears already ringing
yet somehow still hearing her voice
that I held as a child saying never be afraid
 Â
to love everything . She, beneath
the porch light, watches
my body open,
the daylight becoming equal to it.
Death, Mother and Child
Mosul, Iraq, 2004
Kollwitz was right. Death is an etching.
I remember the white Opel being
pulled through the traffic circle on the back of a wrecker,
the woman in the driverâs seat
so brutalized by bullets it was hard to tell her sex.
Her left arm waved unceremoniously
in the stifling heat and I retched,
the hand seemingly saying, I will see
you there . We heard a rumor that a child
was riding in the car with her, had slipped
to the floorboard, but had been killed as well.
The truth has no spare mercy, see. It is this chisel
in the woodblock. It is this black wisp
above the music of a twice-rung bell.
Field Manual
Think not of battles, but rather after,
when the tremor in your right leg
becomes a shake you cannot stop, when the burned manâs
tendoned cheeks are locked into a scream that,
before you sank the bullet in his brain to end it,
had been quite loud. Think of how he still seems to scream.
Think of not caring. Call this ârelief.â
 Â
Think heat waves rising from the dust.
Think days of rest, how the sergeant lays
the .22 into your palm and says the dogs
outside the wire have become a threat
to good order and to discipline:
some boys have taken them as pets, they spread
disease, they bit a colonel preening for a TV crew.
 Â
Think of afternoons in T-shirt and shorts,
the unending sun, the bite of sweat in eyes.
Think of missing so often it becomes absurd.
Think quick pop, yelp, then puckered fur.
Think skinny ribs. Think smell.
Think almost reaching grief, but
not quite getting there.
After Leaving McGuire Veteransâ Hospital for the Last Time
This is the last place youâll ever think
you know. You would be wrong of course.
There is time enough to find
other rooms to be reminded of,
other windows to look out,
chipped sills to lean against
that rub your elbows raw. January
is not so cold here as it is elsewhere,
a little gift. When the wind blows it is
its music you remember, not its chill
as it shakes the empty branches and arrives
wherever wind arrives. Go there then, there.
Follow the long and slender blacktop as
it struggles east along the banks
through sprawling fog not destined
to survive its movement in the morning
toward the sea. And toward the sea
the sound of singing ceases, silences
beginning with a sputter and a cough
as the driver of the truck you hitchhiked in
pulls off, and one more cloud of dust
in your life of clouds of dust disintegrates
as evening settles in. What song is this?
you remember the immigrant clinician asked,
and now again along a shoreline in the night
you realize your life is just a catalog
of methods, every word of it an effort
to stay sane. Count to ten whenever
you begin to shake. If pain of any kind
is felt, take whatever is around
into your hands and squeeze, push
your feet as far as they will go
into the earth. Burial is likely what
youâre after anyway. If itâs unseemly,
these thoughts, or the fact that the last
unstained shirt you wore was on
a Tuesday, a week ago or more, do not
apologize. If youâve earned
Similar Books
