Alan Semerdjian: Letters

Letters
after Saroyan


The War Department is a bucket of rain
we left out on the porch.


Each day the water gradually disappears
like family members


after holiday dinners; one by one
the sleep takes over them


until the bucket is emptied, the soldiers
all returned to Ithaca.


This, of course, can only happen in summer
when the heat simmers


all memories dry. But oh the winters,
heading to and returning from,


the bucket seems forever filled, heavier
from the weight of it all.





This poem has appeared in the online version of ARARAT.