“A Very Fine Nest No. 2” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

Sharpsburg, Leaves Wet, Trembling

He reads what he wrote yesterday,
and the great human element of time declares itself
in his watchpocket. Every man here waiting
for the word to charge toward the Rebel army.
What’s in a name, he conjectures, looking at hers.
These words written for Clara, who won’t know much
about Sharpsburg, Maryland, where they have been fighting
for days in and around farms and on muddy roads.
Captain Johnston De Langnel, at an uncertain age
that grows more uncertain every musket shot, looks up through
the starry oak tree, its trembling leaves like the season
with its ever-changing hats and cold; and dreams
of the future where hands will find his crumpled letters
and curious fingers will know the handsome longings
of a Confederate officer rubbing up his uniform
tailored by C.D. Carr on Broad Street in Charleston.
Let those fingers find the truth in these hangman’s knots
of giant trees disguised as a capitol letter–maybe that “T”
which also reminds him of a cocked revolver
whenever they charge cannonades and angry horses
bearing Union marksmen who bless their bullets
in the name of Abraham Lincoln. A stranger who will say
his name to the rain of another generation of men
wanting to love women who will bear their children.
Maybe these pages will be read in a claustrophobic rainstorm,
and as a stranger hastily puts his anthem aside,
he still hears Rebel yells, dying more each time
cannonballs tear apart fence posts and gouge the black earth.
This will be the last charge, he thinks, so he folds
his letters into his green wool silk blend lining,
knowing his bright red broadcloth collar, cuffs,
and piping will never look the same on him.
His body lunges forward over the fence post
that kept him safe from bullets. Gold embroidery
on his collar denotes a captain, his revolver in hand
waves at the Yankees, and De Langnel, originally
from New York, sees that twisted root of the moon
before he topples over in their desperate foray
to scar the heart of Lincoln with the Union dead.

 

Russell Thorburn grew up in Birmingham, Michigan. Recently he visited there and wrote most of these poems at the library and his favorite cafe on West Maple. He was always obsessed with the Civil War and the names of the soldiers who fought in that bloody conflict. His latest book, And the Heart Will Not Quicken, delves into that world of musket balls and the music of Richard Manuel (Cornerstone Press 2025). He was the first poet laureate of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, as well a school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University.