the winter anthology
Vol. 7
Peter Mishler
salvation army
Officer,
now that you’ve parted
the noble gasses of heaven,
evaded the worm
who feeds
on our first green selves,
you are finished
with keeping the peace,
collecting its taxes,
done with the telexes
crossing your desk,
your children’s
memories broadcast
twenty-four hours a day
from militia towers.
Done with the upper-
echelon malls,
sylvan suburbs,
salted fields.
Tonight you flip
your pocket change
onto the boots
of the pockmarked
lyrist from Thrace,
and he plays
and plays for you
and dumbs down the sound
of your aircrafts
dropping new tennis shoes
into the mountains.