Gettysburg, 1996

                  Nearly midnight, driving back from Virginia,
                  the man insisted like a child that we take the next exit

                  and unlike a child got his wish.  All we knew
                  of that place--turning point, the farthest north

                  a gruesome family quarrel got.  Aiming headlights
                  at granite markers, we read the names of infantries

                  from distant states.  Heat lightning turned out
                  to be a monument's eternal flame,

                  wind-battered, scattering shadows on the plain.
                  This park closes at dusk, a sign warned.

                  But how can a mowed field close against the sky?
                  Driving home, silent in the dashboard's glow,

                  we could not tell what we learned at that place.
                  Later, he would say it was eros and thanatos:

                  what's more vivid than a young woman strolling
                  on a battlefield, his leather jacket on her shoulders?

                  But I was struck by other things--ancient orchards
                  and cornfields forever razed by the armies' advances,

                  and knowing all our mistakes and failures of faith,
                  I still yearn to carry a child on this earth.


                  *          *          *            
      
     
                  Tissue Balloon

                  I did not taunt him nor try to bite
                  my brother's wrist.  He did not hurl dirt bombs
                  at my legs or pummel my neck with his fists.

                  I don't recall a thing we said that day,
                  no more than eight and ten, parents elsewhere,
                  forgotten.  It was his plan to cut

                  tissue paper with Mom's sewing shears.
                  He traced the shapes with Elmer's glue.
                  I smoothed the rippled seams beside him

                  on the laundry room floor.  Together
                  we carried that frail skin across the road.
                  While I stretched it out on the bank, he built

                  a teepee of sticks and split wood.  Together
                  we held it open over the pointed blaze until 
                  it filled with smoke, trembled, then rose

                  like hope.  Our beautiful pearl, impossible
                  planet of our afternoon's truce, lifted
                  as high as the phone lines before bursting

                  into flames like the terrible face of Oz before
                  Dorothy finds only a small man hiding behind
                  a curtain.  Not a bad man, just a bad wizard.

                  All that happened was some brittle, black ash
                  which drifted onto our fingers and hair as
                  we chased after it laughing as boys laugh.


                  Julia Kasdorf  (Click for bio.)


      


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