Kids on the Battlefield

A warm day though some snow 

rests on the branches, leaves 

on the verge of blossoming green— 

hibernation is over at last. 

The kids kick a ball, boys and girls, 

shouting loud enough to wake the dead 

who startle and feel for limbs and hearts 

in the dark, remembering what happened.  

TIM SUERMONDT

Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest Josephine Baker Swimming Pool (MadHat Press, 2019). He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.