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Fleeing Antietam
Isabelle5

Battered musket forgotten, feet barely shod
 1
in strips of dirty cloth,
 2
he runs and runs,
 3
 
away from the hot sun beating down
 4
on meadows sullied, stained,
 5
away from the pleas of the dying
 6
and the silence of the dead.
 7
 
In stubbled fields wrapped around
 8
dusty clapboard houses,
 9
sweat-stained farmers cry out,
 10
 
“Tell me, boy, what have you seen?”
 11
 
He does not stop to answer -
 12
 
imagining he is in his bed,
 13
his faithful dog snoring at his side,
 14
though his lips unconsciously gasp
 15
a frantic cadence - oh god oh god oh god.
 16
 
A startled woman spreading seed
 17
for hungry chickens, calls,
 18
 
“Son, why do you run?”
 19
 
He does not pause but shouts
 20
over his bleeding shoulder,
 21
 
“Oh, Mother, because I cannot fly.”
 22

09/23/08

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