Page 37 - Rainbow County and Other Stories

P. 37

Pilatus 25

Pilatus

The soldier
is no longer
the property of the state
when he dies
he reverts
to his family,
to the mourning women
moving among the cabbages
at the grocer’s
dropping Kleenexes,
to the father
come up from whatever fields
to read the withering telegram.
No longer state’s property:
their own, at last.

The women move together
fluid
from cabbages
to long trays of meat
(that man in butcher white
washing up)
no freer they
for him,
killed.

That butcher in spatter
commonplaces usually
about fair trade,
but today,
washing,
improvises how the young man
(again theirs)
uh, kept them free.

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