He bathes the child
places her in a garden swale
under the eyes of God
and goes to war
very close to home.
This soldier has dreamd of nailing
cross-hatched flags
to European brick
dreamed of looking down on
scatter-shot fields
sown by the honor dead
everywhere from desert to kingdom
come, deeper he knows
in his hothouse dream
in the blood sands of Iraq.
The first garden under holy siege
Eden before the fall
the poppy glow of innocence
mute at the end of a gun.