From the Empirical Archives: The Loss of Many, The Loss of One by By Peggy Aylsworth

The Loss of Many, The Loss of One

Peggy Aylsworth

Originally published in the January 2013 issue of Empirical

It’s August. The sea lies still.

The air grows thick and heavy.

What’s new

is old.

Young soldiers reverse artillery.

“Tough” is the word that drowns

in sorry

blood,

pushed to a pressure without a human

name. The spirit flogged to this:

obey,

prepare

for the kill, to face another face,

shatter its grace, less worthy, as

the story

goes.

Is this his brother, created equal,

condemned for the crime of other?

A bullet

to the head,

his own, crosses the divide to choice.

The land grows empty as lightning strikes.

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