KIA near Tchepone, Laos 1971
February’s tired hand
closes around the lilies.
The night air like silk,
streams of still water
hold the rotation of stars
in your eyes. You are
feather, black wing
above the wounds,
above the stripped brown
mountains and trees
that wave their bloody
limbs in the constant
light of bodies
ascending, the requiem
of the night bird’s
rising call.
Stefan served with U.S. Army Special Forces during the American war in Việt Nam. His poetry has appeared in the American Literary Review, Consequence, Folio, Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, and Pedestal among others. He has published three collections: Persona and Shadow (Flutter Press, 2015), Absolution (Main Street Rag Publishing Co., 2018) and The Latitude of a Mercy (New York Quarterly Books, 2021).
