Lawrence Hall, HSG
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                                              A Carrier of Bodies

                                   My stretcher is one scarlet stain

                         -Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”

In illo tempore:

I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies; I was already up
There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun

Later:

Carrying bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes
Red fragments of flesh in the E. R. at night

Now:

In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older self, to a chair at dusk