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Two Girls

By W. S. Di Piero b. 1945

Eighteen-sixty eighteen sixty-four,

six hundred ten thousand men

gaseous gray, blackened body parts

like chopped wood in Virginia sunshine.

Or nineteen-fourteen nineteen-eighteen,

trench rats, thousands, big as badgers,

rip chines from horse and human flesh.

IED's, cluster bombs, punji sticks,

primed to shred feet, thighs, spine, sack,

yesterday, when we were countless.

Conscience says Count them up and be good,

suck on me like red candy stick

in casual lookaway moments.

Protected by neighbors, two girls

villagers know to be deficient

doll themselves up as bombs

for market day's chickens and yams,

and like a world-body neural surge,

their protectors fly into fatty parts.

Source: Poetry (January 2009).

Biography

W.S. Di Piero was born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned degrees from St. Joseph’s College and San Francisco State College. A poet, essayist, art critic, and translator, Di Piero has taught at institutions such as Northwestern University, Louisiana State University, and Stanford, where he is professor emeritus of English and on faculty in the prestigious Stegner Poetry Workshop. Elected to the American Academy of . . .

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