November 11

My mother calls it pushing and contractions,

not Armistice or Veteran’s,

or according to the Internet, the date

Sherman began his burning

to the sea. Riots broke out in Tibet.

On this day, Kurt Vonnegut was born,

and the Internet lists him first

as soldier, then author, academic,

the order perhaps not incorrect,

given the smell of mustard gas

and roses. After a bombing, what

do the birdies say with their barbed-

wire beaks? On this day: a battle,

a massacre. A thing called disaster.

Vonnegut wrote of the present—

how wide it was, how deep.

The doctrine of transubstantiation

was defined on this day, the way

Vonnegut said of blood in the snow,

the color of raspberry sherbet.

My father calls this one of his happiest—

the bread he consumed, the wine.

The sudden transformation of a man.

The Internet tells me: on this day

the end of occupied France.

And if I trust Vonnegut, we’re trapped

in the amber of this moment,

this date and any other fossilized,

suspended in resin, held dying

and delivered in the hard yellow light.