by David Keefer
(But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ‘We died at such a place.’)
I never really
Woke that day;
Tossed round in
The back of the track
We rolled through
All the checkpoints,
Were in and out at the
Magazine, broken lead
Seals pressed into boot prints
On the light green floor panels,
Out to the open autobahn out to
The wide open wild gap and then,
Lightly backed
Into the break in that tree line on the
Wooded hillside to stare off at the green
Rimmed horizon and wait for what end would
Be: secure in the hope that we should go first and
Perhaps the rest should never see the impending silence.
For all that martial
Balk and ballistic
Terror when the
Moment finally came
For all the world
To see,
It seemed that one
Could bring millions
To their knees, break
Thousands down to
Dust with but
A simple lie warped
Into true conviction.
David Keefer grew up in upstate NY in the town of Greece, located on Lake Ontario’s shore west of Rochester. Having enlisted in the army as an infantryman in 1987 at 18, he served two years in Europe and in the Army national guard until 1995. He was never deployed for combat during his service. Keefer received a BA in English from SUNY Geneseo where he studied with the resident poet, David Kelly. He received his MA in English Lit from UMASS Boston in 1997. Keefer lives with his wife and Airedale in Wollaston, MA.
_____________________________________________________