At the End of War

The colonel could not decide whether or not to move back to the Iowa town with its own cloudy stream and tinker with two-cycle engines and buy popsicles on hot days for his granddaughter and her many friends.

The bullet flying overhead and southwest had come to resemble the bullet flying overhead and northeast, the battalion’s dog had come to resemble the enemy’s dog, their scorpions the enemy’s scorpions, their flowerpot of basil the enemy’s flowerpot of basil. The greeting of one man had come to sound no different then than another’s, the dust-filled dome of day no different than the enemy’s day. At night, the enemy’s sighs and quaking sounded no different than the tremors from under a nearby tent, splotched with camouflage. Where the desert had overheated, it turned to glass.

The sea contained an abundance of salt then. Nothing at the end of the war could sink.

The air contained an abundance of smoke then, and the silence after fires. Nothing else could rise from the ground except for the struggling grass, burned to the root time after time.

The colonel could not decide whether or not to move to Virginia, set up a business in a 200-year-old house, and become a frequent guest on MSNBC. What was a man to do with his plans, his leftover map? Either way, something like a flight path led back to the world of voice. The house squatted under 300-year-old trees. Warblers and goldfinches would not budge from their singing. Something in a man wanted to sing.

After the day count, the lie count, the medal count, the arm and leg and face count, the body count, the one apology, the one decree, nothing was left at the end of war but to move past the hand.