Maxwell Bodenheim

1892 - 1954 / Mississippi / United States

Soldiers

The smile of one face is like a fierce mermaid
Floating dead in a little pale-brown pond.
The lips of one are twisted
To a hieroglyphic of silence.
The face of another is like a shining frog.
Another face is met by a question
That digs into it like sudden claws.
Beside it is a face like a mirror
In which a stiffened child dangles. . .

Dead soldiers, in a sprawling crescent,
Whose faces form a gravely mocking sentence.
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