manassas
history is meant to be felt
a flower
a leaf
a glinting thing
a bridge that once meant terror
sticks across the path like oak-thrown runes
I came to question the dead:
what does it take to give your life
for freedom? I took off my mask
precarious thin wooden trail
impossibly long — did it feel like salvation
with the war raging behind you?
did you know which leaves to eat
which berries were poison?
I am alone on this path
rustling to my left — a branch falls
like a Union soldier as if
the trees want me to pause
here
so I do
I feel their mourning
a distant drum — highway traffic, maybe
which of these old mothers bore witness
to bent and broken limbs?
I think I remember the map — did we lose
our way? we lift our dead, they said
…and I built a cairn
over the ridge comes wind
like angry relief — don’t dare stop yet
I came here to lie
on the hillside
hungry
gutted
bleeding out into the clay
will my heart feed this grass?
did you know?
my shoulder feels like it’s torn
just keep moving — if you die here
you’ll never see this was not your war
like Viet Nam
like Desert Storm
like Afghanistan
come on, we’ve got to get up
a stone, a red clover
highways are built on cattle trails
battle trails
a lump of dirt like tomorrow’s history
jogger stretches against the rail
built by rangers
a footprint, a conduit
my boots echo on gravel unnervingly
like horse’s hooves — I move to grass
where is shelter? how long
must we run?
retreat is sickly-sweet
two pine cones
moss shifting
hands on the ground, I speak to soil:
did you know?
the earth still holds regret
she told me so
we’re so tired
a rock, old, cold like death
I put my hand across my neck
so my skin can remember
do you pray to your dead mamas
for the roots they gave you?
a foundation, a cemetery
a centipede
…and so I built another cairn
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