At Gettysburg

The one I love stands at the edge
of a wheatfield wearing
a blue cap, holding
a plastic musket in his hands. The one I love does a goofy

dance at Devil’s Den. Mans a cannon. Waves
at me from a hill. He

dips his foot into Bloody Run. The sepia
dream of his dead body
is pulled by the water
over the rocks. And I

am the shadow of a stranger taking
his picture, laid
out like so much black
drapery on the pavement. Is there

some better explanation? Was there

some other mossy, meandering
path we might have taken

to this place through time and space? Why

is it that where my heart
should be, there’s a small
bright horse instead? While I

was simply standing
over there by a stone, waiting, did an old
woman run her bony
hand through my hair, and leave
this gray ribbon there? The one

I love leans up against a fence, and then
pretends to be shot. He

opens his eyes
wide and grabs his chest, stumbles
backwards, falls
gracefully into the grass, where he lies
for a long time holding the sun in his arms. I take

another picture there. The worms

beneath him make
the burden of the earth light enough to bear—and still

inside me I believe I carry
the pond where the injured
swans have come to flock. I
believe I hold inside me
the lake into which the beautiful armless mortals wish to wade. I am

their executioner and their creator, after all, being
as I am, their mother. Were

they gods who came to earth to die and suffer, I wonder, or

boys who died and turned into gods? O,

the one I love needs sunblock, I think, too late,
and, perhaps,
a bottle of water, but now
I have no idea where we are. Where

were you, God asks, when I
spread out the heavens and the earth? If you

were not there, then how
can you expect to know where you are now? Truly,

I don’t know. I look around.
I say, We’re lost,
to the one I love, who

looks over my shoulder and laughs.
No, Mom, he says and points to dot and arrow
of ourselves
on the map.

You’re holding the battlefield upside down.

*Laura Kasischke's most recent book of poetry was published in 2004 by Ausable Press, GARDENING IN THE DARK. She has also published three novels, and teaches at the University of Michigan.