such eyes the widows in Corioli wear
—William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
Behind headlights drawing darker
night against the snow
he regrets saying Kind of like
Afghanistan aloud.
How to explain to his mother
and grandmother in the otherwise
silent heat of the car that suddenly
it had been spring for days
he heard the water running out,
dirty snow returning to mud,
Humvees crawling thick tread
into the cliff road. Helicopters always
close—far—thrumming
hornets caught in the valley’s
cupped hands, and Steve Prescott
swiveling the mounted Ma Deuce
and saying every so often
feels like I cheated on my wife and
now I gotta give her flowers—
even though the hit had been another
team, and we were only stacking
sewing machines outside houses
with un-glassed windows
like blank stares accepting
a world where widows sew
their children clothes with needles
left behind by the men
who killed their husbands.
It’s just—we had to do a lot
of slow driving at night in the snow.
