A Civil War

A Civil War

It was a battleground, they tell me

From the Civil War. Blood and dirt

Bones from both sides fit in this land

The hill rolls slowly, glowing with verdant

Life broken by the ragged brown teeth of

The wall. This path

They tell me was a trench full of men

Sweat, wool, bullets, and fear

Filled it up, then neutral dirt.

We are a civil war too

Love fighting love and blood

I fight for you but lose and weep

Only death should warrant such pain

Cries like wailing ghosts

Ghosts like visions unwanted

A ghost only stays for unfinished business,

You are mine. Never staying

Close but asking for a favor.

Their jaws are slack

There in the dirt with years buried

Eye holes filled with black dirt

Like wounds filled with darkness

In memoriam as an idea,

Not a man. Only now

Can we look on you with indifferent eyes

No mother left to weep

Or widow beat her breast           

The ground remembers violence

It remembers the blood, the love

Like hands stained

I keep killing the enemy. Words and

Knives merging, plunging into sweet flesh

But the casualty is my own. It was a

Battlefield, they tell me, for war

The hills are green but hide death

This heart beats but dies.

Can I dig up the bones and

Hold them to me

You stay close, I want to bury you

Hide you in the green hills and march,

South to victory. Wave my banner

Of valor, purity, perseverance

The wall suddenly ends, abrupt in a bank of trees

I have none of those things

This war has stripped me of them.