U.S. Army Issue Portable Altar

The front lines bristle with metallic gray.
For miles the land is pockmarked by the war
That leaves another hardened steel-core day
Lodged deep in summer 1944.
Flesh hangs from mortar wounds. The injured moan
For mother. Mud turns bloody in the grass.  
Fresh corpses veiled with plaster dust lie, stone
And statuesque. A voice calls all to Mass.
The soldiers find the chaplain with his case.
A medic’s deftness in his hands, he lifts
The weathered wooden lid, inclines to face
Brass vessels polished bright as wedding gifts,
And, as the sour wind lashes at his stole,
Takes up the chalice, paten, cross, and bowl.

Lesley Clinton was awarded second place in the 2021 National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest for her chapbook of poems, Calling the Garden from the Grave. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in THINK, the Windhover, Mezzo Cammin, Ekstasis Magazine, Presence Journal, America, Christianity & Literature, and elsewhere.

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