Sunday, April 13, 2014

Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting

I tell her I love her like not killing   
or ten minutes of sleep   
beneath the low rooftop wall   
on which my rifle rests.   

I tell her in a letter that will stink,   
when she opens it,   
of bolt oil and burned powder   
and the things it says.   

I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand,   
that war is just us   
making little pieces of metal   
pass through each other.

--Kevin Powers

People are calling Powers the first great poet to emerge from our recent wars.

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