well after dark you turn on the tv
and every channel is the after school special,

curious, you think, what timing, what clever
marketing and there’s a marching band

playing a glory hallelujah spiritual and there’s
pickets, great long charges up the hill

and back down and up
the hill and retreat, and then you notice

flags and trumpets and you feel blood pooling
in your feet, a new weight, and the only way

to enlighten is to reenact the marching or
march on the reenactment, if there is anything,

there will always be

 

 

marching. the scene changes and there
are automatic weapons and they are

bayonetted and you think, what
director would knowingly call for such

contrast, such stark period pieces? but it works,
the bayonetted automatic machine gun is

terrifying, it is its own riot, through the screen
it loots and you want retreat, but

your feet have been planks of blood
you have been

tingling. eviscerated.
there’s a tree

in the frame that seems to be the

cog, a tree they march around, a tree
they assault, this willow. this tender

droop and shade, they must be
marching for this, everyone is losing their leaves,

that’s who the song is for,
that’s who the bayonets are

for,
all the this
wailing is.