Something You Once
— loved had the taste of magnolia tree petals
that shook the top of the staircase
in the hour of classes ending and sundown
— feared walked with the sound of leaves
like broken-backed, forgotten Latin
a conjugation neither feminine nor masculine
— stared down was a photograph taken
from a camera inside the body, a quarter
with no soul nor deepening thought
— wished for owned the place between the stars
which you always knew was just a blanket
you wove without concentration
— bargained with shot through dust storms
a bullet with someone’s name on it
but the ghost caught on and had other ideas
— forgot was a note lured through air
and winter trees fostered in the lungs
if you listen you can recall, recall the sound
Elizabeth H. Barbato
18 December 2016
The Man with the Gift Horse Smile
The original plan was to jump the airport,
but the Marines moved too fast, scalding
up Highway 1 like they had the last remaining
free tickets to view the Hanging Gardens.
So Airborne humped it by foot and hotbox Humvee,
a metallic caravan held together by duct tape
swinging far below the careless optics of satellites
and the songs of shining unmanned drones.
Bodies of children had been positioned on the route
like mile markers to Gehenna. Rude bombs
belched bent nails from the violated pits of their tiny
stomachs, a dextrous and appalling surgery.
The whump of explosions concussed the bones of their skulls.
After, the silence spilled like honey into their ears.
On patrol in Assamawah, an officer steps alone into a room
and finds himself surrounded by the cooing of chickens.
His nightvision turns their eyes to jade beads, their feathering
to soft brooding shadows, and then in the middle of it all
the light catches on the sudden teeth of another man’s smile.
The flash ignites the birds to a frenzy. When they subside
he realizes he shot what was already a corpse, left perhaps
to keep the birds alive. Within the smile is a trap, or a gift, or a joke.