Over your slumping shoulder
I can see him
Whitman
hurling the useless sponge
covering his gaping mouth
staggering down the corridor
for the last time
past muffled screams
past physicians in butcher aprons
with their Bromide and hacksaws
past bucket cocktails of excised extremities
past Lincoln's shadow
past Shiloh’s ghosts
past the barricaded doors of both History and English
past the management meeting
within the Offices of the Straight & Narrow,
past microcontaminated fountains
and out,
beyond the last row of cannons,
breastworks and pedestal generals,
out, into the remaining green
waving madly,
the severed civil servant,
the unschooled schoolteacher,
the essayist,
the poet,
the fugitive nurse.
I have signed in and am excited to be a part of the excitement!