Sunday’s War

by A. M. Gwinn

He’s writing about the war, in the room
where the dim glow flashes and crackles
in his Sunday dinner. The children have
been sent to their rooms, drowsy and full.

But the metaphors refuse to coagulate
in the blood spilling like milk or curl
like the bodies, melting from the burn,
into snakes of esses and oh’s.

“Daddy!”

The screams rise like a tower, rip through
his chest as Titanic was opened to water.
From the room of painted butterflies and
faeries; wings unsinged and unfurled, pink
palms stretch upward, their eyes a church
service, lilting like baby birds, “Daddy, tuck us in.”

A.M. Gwynn is the daughter of a retired veteran. She writes poetry and short fiction. Her recent work will be featured in forthcoming issues of War, Literature and the Arts, Fiction Southeast, and Sleet Magazine. Her work has also appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Boston Literary Magazine, Nailed Magazine, and Muddy River Poetry Review. She resides in Germany.