MEMORIAL DAY IN THE SHALE FIELDS
Families gather at the cemetery
of the first Memorial Day to honor
fallen soldiers. The carnival’s din
white noise in the background.
The Governor invokes the Preamble’s
more perfect union,
America’s freedom, her might,
the first woman to have lain an offering
at the soldiers’ graves.
Since she was a foal, Steve’s
mare drank from the pond.
After they drilled next door, the pond discolored.
Its smell went off. Even the elodia
died. Steve kept her away because he couldn’t
drain it. She was such a creature of habit,
she drank anyway. She went blind, her
nostrils enflamed. Delirious, she stumbled
into the barbed wire fence, lost her balance
and got entangled and maimed, deep cuts across
her flanks and neck. She probably would’ve died
like the leopard frogs and the
neighbor’s German Shepherd
did later. It’s the TDS, toluene, benzene, and
radium. Just as well he shot her after
he prayed that God wouldn’t make this happen
in vain. Two bullets. She kicked hard after the first
one, but the second one silenced her.
The blood never made it to the pond.
Sacrifice. We give our animals, ourselves, or
our possessions to offer fealty, to plead for better days,
or ask for forgiveness, mercy, and justice from
the Almighty or the Holy Mother. Salve Regina
we sing from the pews. Kyrie eleison.
Sometimes we burn an effigy. Other times,
like Jeptha, we give our daughters’ blood.
Ellen is arrested on her own property,
spends her savings to stop the Mariner pipeline
from exterminating her heritage.
Her belly was the soil her daughter sprouted from,
an oak tree seeding a thousand acorns.
A Marine stands during the 21-gun salute. His
stomach turns, knowing his flag is soaked in
natural gas being burned and front of him.
He kneels on the scarred leg from Desert Storm.
Mary wipes mustard from Micah’s
American flag shirt, annoyed. The Governor
quotes John F. Kennedy, asks what
we can do for our country instead of
what our country doing for us. He rose to the rank of
Captain in the National Guard’s
28th Infantry Division.
On the Commonwealth’s periphery,
little Hannah shudders in Rachel’s arms.
Her nose bleeds and temples pound
from the fracking brine pushing inside her skull
with Marianas pressure. An alien
sweet stink wafts in the house.
The sink is stained brown-yellow. It’s the
water. Rachel’s mascara streaks down her cheeks.
For some reason she still tries.
* * *
This is another in my poem of the day series that I share on Facebook. You can backtrack through the posts or use the tag “Poem of the Day” to read previous entries.
Peter Walks for Democracy 