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 Ypres
by Cynthia Storrs


On summer holiday in Belgium
we visited the trenches.
A June day
while birds chirped and red poppies pirouetted in the sun
my children laughed as they scrambled
in and out of gouges in the earth.

We wondered what life had been  -
bombs bursting, clods hailing
days and nights, deafening.
mud sucking, wounds stinking,
friends falling
hopes dying
in furrows underground.

The guide said that some
who could not take it    
anymore
went over the top,
stumbled into poisoned clouds
or ran into enemy lines
seeking a bullet
to deliver them.

"I can't imagine," my husband said.

But one does not
have to visit trenches
we learned
to experience a battle.

Ten years later
an email came from our wayward child.

"Sit down," he told me softly, his eyes red and wet.

I retreated into a hell hole
as his barrage of words
thundered in my ears like cannons over Ypres.

With all our hopes raining down
like dirt into our blackness

I heard my husband's breath
rattle in his throat.
He sagged against the wall,
his heart shredded on the wires.
 
My throat burned.

Blinded, I lurched from my position
groping for a No Man's Land
where I could find
my bullet.               

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