by Joe Wilkins
They called up the Mississippi National Guard
in early April, the war still
new and dazzling as the dark faces
of these cotton town Delta boys.
There must be a thousand of them!
And all the sleek busses,
their bellies filling with children.
Joe Wilkins is currently enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Idaho, and his work has been previously published, or is forthcoming, in Talking River Review, California Quarterly, Touchstone, Vox, Mankato, Concho River Review, and Plainsongs.