freeze-frame:
a pair of soldier’s marching boots,
bereft of legs,
sockets of darkness,
dregs of war,
not spit nor polish,
nevermore.

ice mirrors sky,
captures past time
boots and weeds viced in a line
of stark evidence
stretching beyond the horizon.

somewhere near Stalingrad,
a pair of boots,
the legs that wore them
missing in action,
the blood that bore them burning
into the depths of a Russian winter,
collective with history’s unheeded
statistics.

Jeanne Squires

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Jeanne Squires