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Soldiers in World War I Read Maps By the Light of Glow Worms


He knew the stories from his childhood, glow worms
as fairy lanterns, so it must have seemed
he was not deserted, even when
water, food, and safety disappeared.
Bayonet fixed, wool tunic all over mud,
puttees ragged, pouches stuffed with bullets,
the soldier bends above a map at midnight,
places his glow worm gently at the curve
of a railroad line, watches him crawl north
by northeast lighting up rivers, mountains, forests.
The soldier imagines trenches, machine guns,
gas while his fairy-lamp creeps
softly toward the edge of the world.

Susan Lefler

Published in Passager (U. of Baltimore) 2005