Song
Amy Wentworth Bueno
War Poetry Contest 2009 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention
I sing to the triggers
each one asleep like a clitoris.
I sing to the pus in blisters
that will turn back & head for the wound.
I sing to the wounds
opening like wet shouts across the desert.
I sing to the boots,
tongues out to lick the first ashes, to the cash
on holiday in the wind
with no hands to tuck them in,
no coffins. I sing to the coffins
like outhouses or hideouts, to the kin
of bandages, unrolling their white routes.
I sing to the crouchers, the pouters, the slouchers,
& the doubters, to the chicken
neurotic & lost in the rising dust
of men. I sing to the glowing eyes of buttons,
looking left, looking right, like children.
To those who descend:
the kissers, the pissers, the losers,
to those who pretend
that bread will rise after sinking low
in the oven. I sing to the yeast
feasting & achatter in their packets,
to all the sugar without purpose,
to the days of cooks who cower
behind steam. To rust
agleam on blades, may it overcome
sharpness. I sing to the cussers,
the trusters, the fussers. I sing to the zippers
opening like rivers, to the pockets
howling but hidden. I sing to thousands
of sewing kits with needles stacked up
like the skinniest men. To the pens
spilling out wet ribbons
of loneliness. To those sentences of barbed wire
alive in moonlight. To the wandering commas
with no beds. I sing down
into the periods like ancient wells, to the postmarks
stamping down farewell, their wild dates
quivering like animals in a corral. I sing to the clotted
face on the stamp, to the scab of the sun
torn off again & again & again
