May 6, 2009 0
Armory Square Hospital, 1863
by Joshua McKinney first published Tule Review Spring '01
Let the physician and the priest go home.
-- Walt Whitman
The young men haunt his days and nights
within the whitewashed wards. At last a bliss
though terrible. To those outside he writes,
"...there is no time to lose, & death & anguish
dissipate ceremony here between my lads
and me." Without the cloak of poetry,
he cures. He walks between the rows of beds,
his energy unchecked. At last he is free
to love. To give a gift, to dress a wound--
he feels the boys' needs as his own. ...