Assign. #37 - December was the hardest month…

Disclaimer: Elspethdixon does not own the Civil War.  Elspethdixon did not invent iambic pentameter.  Elspethdixon did not own the P.O.W. camp the Union ran at Elmira, New York.  All she owns is fourteen lines of blank verse.
Posted by: Elspethdixon
Rating: PG
Pairing: None.

Warnings: Iambic pentameter?

 

 

Elmira

(December was the hardest month…)

 

In wintertime, the New York wind has fangs

as sharp as hunger, and as cold as loss;

they slash you to the bone through too thin coats

worn down to rags by four long years of war.

There is no victory here, where soldiers die

of smallpox in a festering stockade,

and sentries watch men starve, and call it justice

for Shiloh, Libby Prison, and Bell Isle.

Somewhere back home the world holds beauty still,

but here, within these walls, all colors fade

‘til none are left but black, and white, and grey,

and blue in uniforms and dead men’s lips,

and broken soldiers bow their heads and pray

the South will lose, so that they may go home.