← v12n2, Fall 2013
Poetry · Volume 12, Number 2

New Civilian

The new law

says you can abandon your child

in an emergency room,

no questions asked.

A young father

carries his sleeping boy

through the hospital doors.

Later, parked at the boat basin,

he takes a knife from his pocket,

cuts an unfiltered cigarette in two,

lights the longer half in his mouth.

He was a medic in the war.

In his basement are five bronze eagles

that once adorned the walls

of a dictator’s palace.