Sunday Poem

Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting
.
I tell her I love her like not killing
or ten minutes of sleep
beneath the low rooftop wall
on which my rifle rests.
.
I tell her in a letter that will stink,
when she opens it,
of bolt oil and burned powder
and the things it says.
.
I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand,
that war is just us
making little pieces of metal
pass through each other.
.
.
by Kevin C. Powers
from Poetry Magazine, Feb. 2009