Maggie Rosen

Guilford Courthouse

Volume 16:1, Winter 2015
Sonnet Issue

Guilford Courthouse

Near the pond, just north of the battle line,
those that are buried reveal themselves, salute,
post a gentle canter through stagnant mud.
An emboldened soldier sits on a stone bench
by a woman feeding ducks, brushes his sleeve,
stares at the motes. The woman clears her throat,
shakes out last crumbs, jingles her keys:
she is a mother, more than used to ghosts.

At night some hear the horses, a splashing charge
towards victory that cost Cornwallis more than he had.
One area is now a shopping mall: I picture warriors
eyeing the guns in Walmart, wading through the weeds
to scope the parking lot from higher up.
Some chant a loss only the grasses can hear.

 

Maggie Rosen is a native of Greensboro, NC who now lives in Silver Spring, MD. Her poems have been published in Barely South, Blood Lotus, qarrtsiluni, Sow’s Ear, and Plainsongs. She has worked as an education writer and teacher of English to speakers of other languages.