Historians will tell you my uncle wouldn't have called it @3World War II@1 or the @3Great War plus One@1 or @3Tombstone@1 @3Over my Head@1. All of this language came later. He and his buddies knew it as @3get my ass outta here@1 or @3fucking trench foot@1 and of course @3sex please now@1. Petunias are an apology for ignorance, my confidence that saying @3high density bombing@1 or @3chunks of brain in cold coffee@1 even suggests the athleticism of his flinch or how casually he picked the pieces out. Geraniums symbolize the secrets life kept from him, the wonder of @3variable speed drill@1 and how the sky would have changed had he lived to shout @3it's a girl@1. My hands enter dirt easily, a premonition. I sit back on my uncle's stomach exactly like I never did, he was a picture to me, was my father looking across a field at wheat lying down to wind. For awhile, @3Tyrants' War@1 and @3War of World Freedom@1 and @3Anti-Nazi War@1 skirmished for linguistic domination. If my uncle called it anything but @3too many holes in too many bodies@1 no flower can say. I plant marigolds because they came cheap and who knows what the earth's in the mood to eat. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CANZONET: TO HIS COY LOVE by MICHAEL DRAYTON NO LONGER COULD I DOUBT HIM TRUE by WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR NATHAHNI AND SOYAZHE by FRANCES DAVIS ADAMS THE FROGS: A 'EURIPIDEAN' CHORUS by ARISTOPHANES LINES WITH A WEDDING PRESENT by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ON SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS by WILLIAM BLAKE ON THE PORTRAIT OF A COLONEL; G.H.H. by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |