April 6, 2022
In dream, I am extracting bodies
from the rubble of bombed buildings.
There are many of us under this
granite sky and charred chunks of concrete.
Here and there, torn lace curtains,
broken teacups, an odd shoe. No one
speaks. We find a body and drag
or carry it to the middle of what
was a street. Bodies lined up.
Others check their pockets for IDs,
photograph them if they have
facial features someone may recognize,
then bag them in plastic so black
light could not shine on the remains
for a thousand years. No one speaks.
After a few days, no one cries,
no one feels. We are as numb as a tree
as we bend and lift and grunt.
In each heart, a hope that there
will be a body, no matter how broken,
that breathes. When another signals me,
I go to help him drag one more body
and he points to its face. I look
at it, then at him standing like a tree
with drooping limbs. There, on the
ground, is a body with my face.
*
Gary Metras is the author of eight books of poetry and thirteen chapbooks. His new book is Vanishing Points (Dos Madres Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in such journals as America, The Common, One Art, Poetry, Poetry East, and Poetry Salzburg Review. A retired educator, he fly fishes his home waters in western Massachusetts as often as possible.
oh. that last line–i felt it as if it were my face, too … so powerful this poem.
Rosemerry, Oh, such a good reaction to the last line, the one I was hoping for in each reader! Thank you for co9mmenting.
Gripping and perhaps the grimmest war poem ever, and rightly so. You have spoken the unspeakable. And when there is no shock left, you hit us with the last gut punch.
Ever since it began, I have been thinking of you and Natalie. I remember her Ukrainian Easter egg art, intricate and fragile. June and I are thinking of you both.
Chip, Glad the poem works for you. Thank you for commenting and for your thoughts.
Gary, thank you for sending me your poem and for writing what I have not had the guts to write. John Donne had it right.
Maren, thank you for appreciating the poem and commenting!
Gary, thank you for sending me your poem, and for writing what I have not had the guts to write. John Donne had it right.
Very, very powerful imagery and statement. A regrettably necessary poem. Well-crafted, as always.
Harris, Thank you.
Not ” In dream”, Gary…..in nightmare.
Jim, nightmare is one type of dream. Dream is the larger category. I wanter the larger for this poem. Thanks for commenting.