Valentine’s Day, 1945
Michael Cooper
blockbusters took the air
night mother blue
grew incendiary havoc: her
legs don’t shake
they jettison the stump of her body to walk
awhile in the jargon of air traffic
controllers—hoove [strafing or not]
prints across the cement yawn of my cairn. Rubbled—I smile
at the somnambulance as it roars by
with its eye splitting wine O Harpy—red blue
howl leaps thru the intersection against the slotted
traffic light without looking—Black Out the mother stares
at the ribbed carriage abandoned by infant [where
do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?]
life—I grin
crank her air-raid siren—I searchlight
healed by her falling torch song.
Michael Cooper is an Inland Empire poet, PoetrIE member, CSUSB MFA student, veteran, and father of two great sons, Markus and Jonathan. You can find his work in the Berkeley Review, the Portland Review, The Los Angeles Review, and H_NGM_N, among other fine publications. His book, coauthored with good friend Cindy Rinne, Speaking Through Sediment, is now available from ELJ Publications. Michael would like to make you aware that the splash zone includes the first eleven rows.