Shane McCrae

The Hero of The God of War

My father leads me to the mountain he
Carries my mother’s ashes in a pouch
      Me on his back up cliffs     we crouch
Beneath a heavy rock like frightened lizards     be

-tween it the     heavy rock     and the cold dirt
It’s not a tunnel     but it’s like a low
      -er sky     and shuffle as we go
Wading through human bones     I’m sick and hurt

Him by being sick     I years ago I was
And so to him I’m always sick the rock
      Might fall    and all the dry bones break
And puff away     blood traps the clouds in us

Note: “Blank Verse Sonnet Concluded by a Pure Rhyme and an Impure Rhyme” and “Elizabethan Sonnet on Violating the Flag Code” were first published in Berlin Lit

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