ROSE TRAIL
The old loss is rarely recovered.
Bodies asleep, bound fast to their weaponry
and two days rations.
The tents were almost useless, impossibly damp – and
the crows were everywhere all at once always.
He recalled something he’d once read
about the legend of the Chinese water dragon, a fish
that miraculously ascends into the heavens.
It was true that here in this country, in this wet Alabama heat,
the waters were troubled – with the spirit of healing,
old baptisms, of revelries no one dared mention anymore.