Elegy for Peter
By Bruce Weigl
That night we drank warm whiskey
in our parked car
beyond woods now lost to the suburbs,
I fell in love with you.
What waited was the war
like a bloody curtain,
and a righteous moment
when the lovely boy’s
spine was snapped,
then the long falling into hell.
But lately, you’ve been calling me
back through the years of bitter silence
to tell me of another river of blood
and of the highland’s
howl at dusk of human voices
blasted into ecstasy.
That night in sweet Lorain
we drank so long and hard
we raised ourselves
above the broken places,
mill fires burning
red against the sky. Why
is there no end
to this unraveling.
Copyright Credit: Bruce Weigl, “Elegy for Peter” from Archaeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Bruce Weigl. Reprinted with the permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., www.groveatlantic.com.
Source: Archeology of the Circle: New and Selected Poems (Grove/Atlantic Inc., 1999)