W. D.
Ehrhart
USA
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W. D. Ehrhart is author or
editor of nineteen books of poetry and prose, most recently
The Bodies Beneath the Table (Adastra Press, 2010). A
Marine Corps veteran of both the Vietnam War and Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, he has received an Excellence in
the Arts Award from Vietnam Veterans of America and the
President’s Medal from Veterans for Peace. He holds a PhD
from the University of Wales at Swansea, UK, and teaches
English and history at the Haverford School in Pennsylvania. |
Coaching Winter Track
in Time of War
The boys are running
“suicides”
on the football
field today:
ten-yard increments
out to the fifty
and back again,
push-ups in between.
It’s thirty degrees,
but they sweat
like it’s summer in
Baghdad,
curse like soldiers,
swear to God
they’ll see you burn
in Hell.
You could fall in
love with boys
like these: so
earnest, so eager, so
ready to do whatever
you ask, so
full of themselves
and the world.
How do you tell them
it’s not that simple?
How do you tell
them: question it all.
Question
everything. Even a coach.
Even a president.
How do you tell them:
ask the young dead
soldiers coming home
each night in
aluminum boxes
none of us is
allowed to see,
an army of shades.
You tell the boys
“good work” and call it a day,
stand alone in
fading light while
memory’s phantoms
circle the track
like weary athletes
running a race
without a finish
line.
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© Copyright, 2012,
W. D. Ehrhart.
All rights reserved.
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