Tourists for Civil War Battlefields

You can buy a t-shirt

With a dead soldier on it

Someone’s brother

Someone’s husband

On a t-shirt

For sixteen ninety-nine

A little pricey

But that’s to be expected

When you buy something

From a Civil War gift shop

There are snow globes

With dead soldiers in them

Dead Civil War soldier dolls

And a decapitated Civil War soldier
Action figure

Katie thinks that all of this

Is in poor taste

But her mother reminds her

That not only are all these people

Long dead

But their families are long dead

Their grandchildren are dead

Maybe not long dead

But certainly dead

And so who’s going

To get offended by the picture

Of the dead soldier

On a calendar?

But Katie thinks of her brother

Recently injured overseas

And currently in some hospital

But she’s not allowed to know where

At night she hears her parents

Whispering intensely

About what the army was telling them

And whether it was the truth

Or what if--?

Her mother stops the conversation there

But her father pushes the issue

Usually on a Wednesday night

And says they have to consider

That they’re being fed a bill of goods

And that their son is really gone

And for some reason

Nobody can tell them about it yet

What if her brother was dead

And what if he died in a field

Like the field where these Civil War battles

Once happened on bad days

Where the air could snap

Like the pods her mom puts

In a big brown bowl

And snacks on while she watches Jeopardy?

Would there be a gift shop

In that place one day

And would there be t-shirts

And would her brother

Be on one of those t-shirts?

Katie thinks of herself

As a ghost

Haunting that place

Far ahead in the future

A place that may never exist

In a time that Katie

Will never get to see

And shouldn’t even

Be able to imagine

She looks at the jar

Filled with grass

From the place

Where the battle took place

And notices the five ninety-nine price tag

Thinking it could be grass from anywhere

And that even though
She doesn’t doubt the scruples

Of the owners

Of a gift shop

Next to a Civil War battlefield

It still seems like a crime

To sell something like

Not because it has meaning

But because it doesn’t

By putting on a price assign it

It creates a meaning

A value

It says that grass that grew

Long after the thing

That made the place

It was pulled from special

Is also special

Because of the thinnest

Of associations

It’s also just grass

In a jar

Katie leaves the gift shop

Where her parents are arguing

Over what they should buy

And put in her brother’s room

A shrine that’s never been

So much as stepped in

Since he went away

She walks out onto the field

And as she does

She starts pulling up grass

Her body bends down

Her hand swipes

Like a hawk

And there’s grass

Clenched in her fist

And she does this

Over and over

Dropping the grass

And grabbing more

The air doesn’t feel

Fit to snap

And the field is so large

It seems logical to assume

That the battle

Didn’t take up the whole field

And maybe the field

Wasn’t even this big

Back then

It’s hard to know

What could have been

By looking at

What is now

If you could see

Into the past

And the future

You’d eventually

Have to choose

Which side to look at

Katie likes to think

She’d look forward

At the present

At this moment

Here

But the present has no pull

It only asks you

To stay put

And not worry

About how much

A t-shirt

Should cost