Poetry
Darkling
By Paula Bohince
After Hardy
At my bitterest, she became less
starling than black hole, eating matter—
what Hell is—in the tender
phlox and teardrop-
shaped asters.
What stood her among the years
of embedded shrapnel,
the bullets’ flung
red jackets?
The day risen into stained glass
for any vandal
to smash. Memento
mori, heeled in the field, standing in
for the flown or downed
or damned.
Paula Bohince is the author of a poetry collection, Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods (Sarabande Books, 2008), and the recipient of a 2009 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Please follow our Commentary Guidelines when engaging in discussion on this site.
