Blue-Tail Fly

1863, Walt Whitman Reads to the Limbless, Dying

44 1863 Walt Whitman Reads to the Limbless, Dying In a second story— the monuments are low rows of sheets that reek of iodine and marrow. Screams swoop, trapped like sparrows in the soldier’s tent, frantic over bunk and mud. Compelling as the need to war, the needs of war— Read to me. The poems rise as ether before the dim, lip to beard he whispers through a moan the lyric of divine union. Beyond the cannon’s shatter, they call for comfort— a song of beginnings— Read to me. The ghost of an arm comes to rest at his knee. He takes up the book, puts a licked thumb to the edge, opens the leaves— Is the hairless stump any less poetic than the blossoming grass? a poem rolls as a song across his lips, familiar as the clop of a horse upon brick. Piece by piece a life is reinvented, as the song cobbles over closed eyes. Write for me. ...