During the month of April 2020, Arlington Poet Laureate Emerita Katherine E. Young is posting poems from the forthcoming anthology Written in Arlington, which showcases the poets and poems of Arlington, Virginia.
Homefront
by Stephen Niedzwiecki
It wasn’t the sands that tore us apart
And it wasn’t the job that made him leave
It was the words they said
It wasn’t the bombs or shells
But rather the words in Washington
That buried him in Afghanistan
The sand between his fingers
Now runs red
Under a false crusade
For the drops of oil
That fuel their needs
The way his body fell
To the stained sand
Like the way
He used to fall next to me
Unto the crevasses and folds of our bed
And I wish he was still lying next to me
Stephen Niedzwiecki is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia, where he earned a BA from Marymount University in Arlington. His articles have been featured with InsideNoVa, MSN, The Stacker, and Capital Standard.
Written in Arlington / Spoken in Arlington is a print and digital collection of the poets and poems of Arlington, VA, edited by Katherine E. Young and published by Paycock Press (forthcoming, fall 2020). It is supported in part by Arlington County through the Arlington Cultural Affairs division of Arlington Economic Development and the Arlington Commission for the Arts. For more information, visit Arlington Arts.
Image: After the Rain mixed media/collage on canvas by Anya Getter (fragment)
Katherine E. Young, Poet 