Survivors Walk in Battleground Park

And the pale girl in the wig plays
the cancer card for Radio Nueva Vida.
Their dj spins live media sympathy
like cotton candy for the crowd gathered
at the registration shelter.

A bugle calls in the distance—
ironic anthem to her heroism today.
Confederate re-enactors overtake us
on their own shank’s mares, trot off
to the first historic skirmish of the day,
saber tips furrowing the ground behind them.

What a story of denial we make—
the survivors troop past beds of yellow tulips,
wearing t-shirts emblazoned with
the face of the ingénue,
who will be as cured of her innocence
as a country ham.

It was as if we’d all become toad-eaters
for a medicine show trailing Sherman’s March—
as if we believed the white-haired gentleman
wasn't a fake and sold an elixir to cure anyone.

Our girl, exhausted now, sits on a bench
beneath the general’s statue—her bald head
shines with sweat, her wig balances on the bush
where she threw it.

Pinned down in crossfire or high-tailing it
in retreat, could those long-dead soldiers
have seen the beauty of these spring woods?
We want to see that beauty now in
the craven face of our Creator.