III

      ] and all wes then cleare, some faces

      hath shadowes in them. Mister Preacher

      marke the doores with crosses,

      and ere long there is no winde in me

      to stand on. Blesse us Lorde

      with soupe and wine, bread and water

      till we dye. And blesse Katheryn

      with her long thin handes. You I saw

      sucking the wordes from her mouth,

      the light from her skin [

A HISTORY OF WAR

      The fields buckled into earthworks,

      breastworks, and the men dug deeper

      into their ground. Of course, once

      the trenches were cut, they could not

      be moved—so the men adorned

      the bunkers with card tables, slicked

      the walls with posters, poured rum

      into mugs they’d brought in from town.

      Each morning, they stood-to, glared

      down their rifles, through the nets

      of barbed wire, the craters and corpses,

      the litter of branches, footprints

      and shells. Across the way, bayonets

      just like theirs aimed back, as if

      the parados propped mirrors, as if

      their own blackened faces were hard

      set against them. Over there, just

      as here, the color guard raised the flag,

      the captains sloganeered through

      their bullhorns. Everyone could hear

      the echoing, and everyone roared

      and shouted—because such words

      were the river that carried them deeper,

      that kept them from sinking.

      Then, as was the ritual, at nine,

      the men climbed down from the firestep,

      shot craps on the duckboards, read

      treatises in the dugouts on passion

      and Passchendaele. Anything to kill

      the time between assaults, to black out