Fredericksburg Battlefield
The night before the battlefield, our bivouac's
the campus guesthouse. Too much burgundy,
a few poems, a little piano. No soldier's
sick clutch beneath the breastbone this morning.
Hungover sinuses are my only discomfort,
and the regret a four-poster unused by love
engenders. I have not slept on the earth in years.
Despite all my petty rages, the only blood
I’ve ever drawn has been my own.
On this slaughtering ground shriveled
into park, we watch a movie, stare at still-life
exhibits, among the other tourists or pilgrims
or scholars. Sad to feel so little, so safe,
dull and detached. What is history
but a few copied pages of Catton
in my gray backpack? From the visitor's
center we wander out, beneath
the sifting topaz of willow oaks,
down orderly paths, past numbered
relics on the walking tour, past blinding
yellows of Norway maple seized by sun.
Behind this pocked stone wall,
I stand where the defenders stood.
I want to think two lovers or brothers were here,
watching that blue surf smash the breakwater,
then roll back repelled, beaching husks in its wake.
Gray as morning mist my Rebels gasp,
side by side in the Sunken Road, gray
as winter sky. This is how heroism sparks,
how it flames like gun barrels, Norway maples
in November. One man steadies the other's
elbow like honor, calming the other's fear,
defending the land as if it were kin.
Survival is one gift they pray for, their mutter
inaudible beneath gunfire and frosted beards.
That, and the grace of falling together,
as maple seeds unspool, fused shoulder to shoulder,
a helix of wings. From twig-ends they break loose
above bloodless stone, slip slanting along a modern breeze.
—Jeff Mann
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Jeff Mann’s books include four collections of poetry, Bones Washed with Wine, On the Tongue, Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology, and A Romantic Mann; two books of personal essays, Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear and Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South; two novellas, Devoured, included in Masters of Midnight: Erotic Tales of the Vampire, and Camp Allegheny, included in History’s Passion: Stories of Sex Before Stonewall; three novels, Cub, Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal, winner of the Pauline Réage Novel Award, and Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War, winner of a Rainbow Award; a collection of poetry and memoir, Loving Mountains, Loving Men; and two volumes of short fiction, Desire and Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat and A History of Barbed Wire, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. He teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.