Stalingrad

After the tyranny ice field cracked
and receded, leaving behind
emptied bottles and uranium crates
instead of the rubble of glacial silt,

they found the frozen soldiers
perfectly intact in their siege rags,
still holding guard at the invisible gates.
The salt ligatures that run like grain

up their felt and newspaper shoes
and their leather faces, asleep, capture
the ordeal of pain implicit in infinity.
Imagine them, their rations of gunpowder

snow, a blizzard of bullets
packing them tight into history
as the city ground to dust
under a blanket of ice and iron.

Because the tryanny fields are retractable,
they advance and retreat like ice ages.
This bone, those bits of rock and garbage,
the fossilized angels dug up in Carpathia,

they prove everything. And nothing.
We guard the gates, transparent as snow.

Copyright © 2004 Amy Scattergood All rights reserved
from the Cream City Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission