Mary Harwell Sayler

STAND-DOWN
After V-E Day

Every few days we clean our stove and pipe
of soot and carbon – accumulated quickly
as we burn the diesel oil mixed in a fifty-
gallon drum we found somewhere,
scrounging to keep warm by our fire.

I wish I could say it’d be this easy to clean
the debris acquired since we’ve been here,
but that’d make me a liar, and that’s one thing
I’m sure I’m not. The rest, I’ve got to find out
again. Like, at home – will it be as clear as here
who calls a stand-down so no one flies off
that day? Knowing who decides such things
and how would be a big relief, but that’s just
tiredness talking.

We’ve done everything we know to do here,
so now we’re stripping down our gear and
pulling down our tent and taking down our
equipment – that stove and the wash basin
we made from an old oxygen tank – and we’re
dumping out our water barrel and detaching
tubing used as a hose, and we’re turning in
the guns kept by our side so long they now
seem warm.

©Copyright 2002 by Mary Harwell Sayler

From the chapbook: “Winning the Wars”
All rights reserved; used with poet’s permission