by Patrick Rodgers
Rubble is the lifeblood of a war.
Every day a house levels
and gives height to a mountain.
A pile of ash is too many things:
keys hands plastic feet
keepsakes nails arms.
In amounting the dead
census-takers report pounds
of what remains. The numbers
are etched into coffins.
There’s honor in going by fire
but a missile rejects that mercy:
the flames are short +
cede to smoke. A second passes.
A town is torn
with such precision:
the residents so disoriented
they cannot find the sun.
Which way is east?
No one can agree
as another’s kneecaps splinter.
Everyone heads down into bunkers
& they do not journal, no short stories;
they don’t call the bunker a vault or a crawlway
they don’t call it damp or dreary.
There’s no need to draw in the reader;
any possible audience
is also hiding from crosshairs.
They do not talk to reporters
when they have cell service.
They are not much of a headline.
They eat. They sleep.
They listen to bombs.
Some have lost their hearing.
Pat Rodgers is a former teacher, current dental student, and poet based in West Philadelphia. His published work can be found in Neptune and several Moonstone anthologies. Recall is the title of his first chapbook.