Teaching Poetry of the First World War

These did not assemble like print

but were colorful. The eye fell

apart, the rifle apart, and limb

from limb. These dead are not

our dead—but we can read.

Through glass, the autumn sun

makes odd shapes on our skins.

In the useless fields of Flanders,

the stones and wildflowers are obvious.

We hurry the wild red poppies

like tourists.

The allotted hour ends,

the classroom empties,

already, the chairs

resume their casual disorder.

(published in Poetry)