From “Appendix to The Anniad”
leaves from a loose-leaf war diary
1
(“thousands—killed in action”)
You need the untranslatable ice to watch.
You need to loiter a little among the vague
Hushes, the clever evasions of the vagueness
Above the healthy energy of decay.
You need the untranslatable ice to watch,
The purple and black to smell.
Before your horror can be sweet.
Or proper.
Before your grief is other than discreet.
The intellectual damn
Will nurse your half-hurt. Quickly you are well.
But weary. How you yawn, have yet to see
Why nothing exhausts you like this sympathy.
Notes:
The portfolio this poem is part of is comprised of selections from a new seventy-fifth anniversary edition of Annie Allen (Brooks Permissions, 2024), and published here by permission of Nora Brooks Blakely. You can read the rest of the portfolio in the September 2024 issue.
Source: Poetry (September 2024)