Two Poems by John Grey

 

The Man Who Served

I drove slowly by the mangled car,

the bright lights, the cops,

the rescue truck.

The victim was in fatigues.

Army reserve, I heard later.

The guy had done a stint

in the middle east.

And I thought:

so this is what it means to serve.

Driving on, 

the white line ahead of me

wasn't a boundary anymore,

just a thread of narrative spooling

between Baghdad and Biloxi.

I could be anywhere.  Kandahar.  Fallujah.

Or just outside Amarillo,

the spot where the pickup swerved.

Maybe the guy was blitzed on mescaline.

Maybe he was just tired of the war

he didn't know he was fighting.

He zigged.  He zagged.

The war came home in tire tracks.

Turns out he was dodging an armadillo.

A damn fool armadillo.  And I thought:

he doesn't even know what country he's in,

let alone what side he's on.

Poem for the Daughter Who Stays Out All Night

It's Sunday.

Dawn.

Silent.

Too silent.

An anxious night

is now a day of dread.

A cruiser drifts past--

slow enough to be seen,

fast enough to be wanted elsewhere.

Only the birds speak up.

One, then a chorus of

sparrows in the rafters.

The house itself is muted.

The mother sleeps fitfully on the couch.

The father, at the window,

speaks only in breath on glass.

Outside, light begins to gather--

not with triumph, but with patience.

It's easier that way.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Abbey.  Latest books, "Bittersweet," "Subject Matters," and "Between Two Fires" are available through Amazon.  Work upcoming in the McGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.