Nancy Holmes - Blazing Star

(mentzelia laevicaulis)

in the rubble at the foot of the cliff
next to the old volcano gone
bankrupt and stone cold
dead, at the edge
of the junkyard, it set up camp
with its roll
of barbed wire, its olive grey
uniform

there       crouched
in the dirt, behind
a broken rock
bristling with weapons
and thorns
it waits all winter, through
the damp spring

by summer, so hot and
rattled that
by accident a golden rocket explodes
gravel spits underfoot
and you go down seeing
the long shooting eyelashes     and bony wrists
of the boy soldier
who doesn’t know
the war is
over and they have lost
the planet,
everything