Travis Burke – 25 Hours from Northern Iraq
25 Hours from Northern Iraq I stood in the rain and listened to the cell phone slowly dying, swearing in the soaked streets, it was my brother fading away this time to desert and sun bullet and mortar I thought I could hear the planes, engines silencing last-minute men called to lose themselves in phosphorous […]
kerry rawlinson – Desert Storm
Desert Storm “In this era of big brains, anything which can be done will be done — so hunker down.” —Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut I once collected colored plastic tags from bread-bag wrappers. The myth was: they’d buy wheelchairs for Vets. When you’re young you long to be deceived to believe this good thing, or that, […]
Karen Paul Holmes – War Bride
War Bride I didn’t know, Mother, I didn’t know until after— when I read that dying’s not the time to bring up memories. The painkillers weren’t supposed to put you out, but you hallucinated— thumb and forefinger sewing the air, voice clear, Who’s the little boy in the corner? I thought it best to keep […]
Katherine Soniat – Orphan Joy
Orphan Joy Send Kuan Yin home to me, her words of compassion pressed between those ancient covers. Mail her to the wrought-iron number nine nailed to my cottage where geese live all winter. Know no more urgent words are written than these. You are silent. Wait still spilt in blue on my open palm. And Kuan Yin walked the tracks with […]
Beth Copeland – Explication
Explication Unaware of his loss until a warm day when he wears shorts above a black titanium leg, I see him step onto a field of poppies or stumble upon a bomb outside of Basra, a limb blasted to bits. I try not to look, but my eye returns to the prosthesis beneath his desk […]
