Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume One Issue Three
The house on Baltimore Street was not built for battle
but that did not stop the dirt-faced Rebs from trampling
its staircase and hammering rifle holes through the attic brick
where boy after boy disappeared in a puff of smoke
and that did not stop the whistle pop thump as fear
flooded their eyes then receded into a bright red pool
that seeped through the floorboards and trickled down the walls
into the kitchen where Hettie hovered over the children--
Look Mama, the youngest one said. Red ribbon!
But it was not red ribbon and after three days of cannon fire
when the children finally slept and Hettie peeked out
the curtained window she could see nothing of Gettysburg
save a mountain of human limbs rising from the front lawn
and there was no one to comfort her, no place to put
the story she was dying to tell, so she buried it in the rubble,
patched the holes with mud and spit and sticks
left it to glow phosphorescent a hundred and forty years later
when scientists came with their powdered gloves
to plunder the corners with beams of black light.