The Missouri Review
Discovering the best in fiction, essays, and poetry
Poem of the Week - March 17, 2009
The Soldier Inside the Horse
A horse disemboweled on a battlefield
for the soldier to crawl inside.
A battlefield once green, once shagged
with bluegrass, now gouged and smoldering.
The soldier once a boy and now
a man inside a horse hollowed out.
The horse then the soldier's costume,
the mouth an opening for his rifle
and not a mouth chewing the bluegrass.
Once the eye sockets cradled eyes
and now peepholes for the soldier
to survey the battlefield, smoldering
and gouged. Once green, once a boy
with strawberry jelly on his lips.
Once a ghost for Halloween with eyeholes
scissored into a bedsheet. An enemy
crosses the battlefield so gunfire
from the mouth of the horse,
so death. The man inside a solider,
the soldier once a boy who wanted
a pony. The horse once a horse,
galloping where the world was green.
This week we're proud to feature "The Soldier Inside the Horse" by David Hernandez, which originally appeared in TMR 28:1. David Hernandez's poetry collections include Always Danger (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003). His YA novels include No More Us for You and Suckerpunch, both published by HarperCollins. His poems have appeared in FIELD, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, and Poetry Daily. His drawings have also appeared in literary magazines, including a feature in Indiana Review. David lives in Long Beach, California and is married to writer Lisa Glatt.
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33.2 Summer 2010
Featuring work by M.C. Armstrong, John W. Evans, Benjamin S. Grossberg, Becky Adnot Haynes, Nathan Hogan, Jonathan Johnson, Devin Murphy, Wade Ostrowski, and Sharon Solwitz... and an interview with Natasha Trethewey.
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