road race, Christmas day (for Alex Decoteau)
i.
a photo, 1910.
Edmonton before
the war.
some version
of the same cold
streets.
same regiment.
Alex Decoteau’s eyes are closed.
one leg raised in anticipation
of next steps.
his hair is short
and black,
legs are bare.
the number three is on his
chest. faces line
the road.
ii.
the night before you left
for Afghanistan it snowed.
some Christmas lights hadn’t
been put away
yet. Christmas trees prone
in back alleys,
wrapping paper
in see-thru blue bags,
needles falling into snow.
you scraped the hair
from under
your chin, shaved the sides of
your head, walked
to the car.
iii.
on Christmas day Alex Decoteau floats
over snow until seven years later
some German farmboy pulls
the trigger and stops
all anticipation.
his legs are churned
into mud. spirit floats
over nameless bodies like
yellow smoke from elm-leaf
fires.
Published online May 02 2017.
Benjamin Hertwig lives on the unceded land of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. His first book of poems, Slow War, is coming out in 2017.
This piece was published in ‘Poetry Only: Hair,’ the Spring 2017 issue of CV2.
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