Historians will tell you my uncle wouldn't have called it @3World War II@1 or the @3Great War plus One@1 or @3Tombstone@1 @3Over my Head@1. All of this language came later. He and his buddies knew it as @3get my ass outta here@1 or @3fucking trench foot@1 and of course @3sex please now@1. Petunias are an apology for ignorance, my confidence that saying @3high density bombing@1 or @3chunks of brain in cold coffee@1 even suggests the athleticism of his flinch or how casually he picked the pieces out. Geraniums symbolize the secrets life kept from him, the wonder of @3variable speed drill@1 and how the sky would have changed had he lived to shout @3it's a girl@1. My hands enter dirt easily, a premonition. I sit back on my uncle's stomach exactly like I never did, he was a picture to me, was my father looking across a field at wheat lying down to wind. For awhile, @3Tyrants' War@1 and @3War of World Freedom@1 and @3Anti-Nazi War@1 skirmished for linguistic domination. If my uncle called it anything but @3too many holes in too many bodies@1 no flower can say. I plant marigolds because they came cheap and who knows what the earth's in the mood to eat. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 5 by CONRAD AIKEN LETTER TO MAXINE SULLIVAN by HAYDEN CARRUTH FOR WALT WHITMAN by DAVID IGNATOW I WANT TO LIVE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SUGGESTED BY THE COVER OF A VOLUME OF KEATS'S POEMS by AMY LOWELL |