by F. Daniel Rzicznek
Grosbeaks
A soldier strips a uniform
from an enemy body, saves it,
wraps it up and folds it away
in a drawer and shows it
to guests for the rest of his life—
like the pool of shade
once cast by the pine cut down
last week, even the stump
drilled out and taken.
The pine’s grosbeaks still
trouble our gutters, not yet
understanding the body's absence.
F. Daniel Rzicznek's books of poetry are Settlers (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press), Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press), and Neck of the World (Utah State University Press), and he is coeditor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press). His poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, Bennington Review, Conjunctions (online), Barrow Street, Prelude, and elsewhere. He teaches writing at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.