Daily Poem: April 18

Custis at Alexandria



The stills of bloated corpses float by like summer—
on summer sounds. On television the war

Lives in dust and summer sounds: crows, cicadas—
Though there have been cold campaigns
The war lives in dust, discomfort,

wool uniforms, distant stench, formal
words that buried the dead on Lee’s front lawn,

and still do,
and the house
is still there,

its confused haunted worthless rafters,
summer.

America wants to approach true color and character.

To recover
the letters, some partially burned, to say

at least
of course
except
whatever it is

there is to say, something,
right