Shiloh

Swallows drape their parabolas like tinsel
on the tepid air: twilight pours

from the woods, washing away
the warped shadows of cannons, cooling

the pyramids of shot: three deer, four, five,
and now a brindled fawn step

poised and dreamy over a weedy trench,
nibbling the grass among the monuments.

                How does a nation repent of its heroics,
                how atone for a single mound
                of severed limbs
                shifting in the firelight?

Tonight
by shores
where deserters cringed
the waters flow like grace by Pittsburgh Landing.




The Comstock Review, Fall/Winter 2004, 93.