Ed McManis
Death in a Red Hat
He says, after hearing about
the imminent war, turning
off Fox News.
“I wouldn’t mind
dying in Paris
or Belgium,”
continues babbling
about his tongue pleasured
numb by chocolate and
thick summer air
sweet with waffles.
“Death in a foreign
country or desert
any time of year,”
And how he’d make friends
with Allies and foreigners
digging plots
deep with hometown
longing, graves sprinkled
with the immortality
of American baubles
and trinkets and
that little flag curled
quaintly into itself like
a day old raspberry croissant,
bag-pipers cresting the hill,
Uncle Sam leading the color guard
with songs of triumph whistled
down the years into edited books
written by survivors with edged
lawns, safe sons and the misery
of what was spilled across
the centuries, packed
into someone else’s gun,
someone else’s funeral.
Ed McManis’s poems have appeared widely. With his wife, Linda, he is the publisher of McMania Publishing. He runs a small school in San Francisco for students who learn differently. Ed and Linda have two grown sons.
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