Letter Composed During a 

Lull in the Fighting

I tell her I love her like not killing

or ten minutes of sleep

beneath the low rooftop wall

on which my rifle rests.

I tell her in a letter that will stink,

when she opens it,

of bolt oil and burned powder

and the things it says.

I tell her how Private Bartle says, offhand,

that war is just us

making little pieces of metal

pass through each other.

-Kevin Powers