by George Eklund
Dear, I have driven to town and pulled
Money from my back pocket.
The nation is still at war.
The solitary walkers still wobble
At the edge of the highway gathering cans.
I want to know my own difficulty.
You rise from the tub in the pastels of the candle;
How can I tell you a story of death?
Perhaps there are things we should not think about.
But who can stop the brain.
You and your viable warmth could save the world.
Now I know a river does not divide anything.
As soon as words serve our will, they seem to die.
Our poor army is in flight though no one can see it.
I pulled money from my back pocket
In a haze of what we know.
I drove to town without a motive, just an obligation.
I saw it all burning
And the drums kept coming into my head.
I thought I would explode in a rainy ditch.
The price of gas across the river is cheaper.
No one can explain why.
George Eklund received his M.F.A from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and has taught at Morehead State University since 1989. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Crazyhorse, Epoch, The Laurel Review, The Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, The North American Review, Quarterly West, Sycamore Review, and Willow Springs, among other publications. He has been awarded the Al Smith Fellowship in Poetry by the Kentucky Arts Council. Eklund's new book is forthcoming from ABZ Press in 2011.
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