War Destroys A Man From the Inside Out
Shrapnel bores out of Daddy when he chops too much wood. They float to a place near his spine and Momma fishes them out with tweezers and a needle.
Shrapnel bits don’t look like bullets. Sometimes they look like hominy, sometimes like baby teeth. They’ve been coated with scar tissue, given their own skin.
I think it’s strange how Daddy can go on, chopping wood far away from the war with its metal still ripping through his body. Momma says the war never really stops; it just becomes a part of a man and destroys him from the inside out.
Edie Meade is a writer, visual artist, and mother of four boys in Huntington, West Virginia. She has published two collections of poetry, Every Day Is A Love Letter, and Birth & Other Stages of Death. Say hi on Twitter @ediemeade.
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