by Bill Kemp
Historically, linens depart
like exhausted men.
They are stuffed into grey bags,
or bailed for rags into rail cars.
Or piled high in sky blue trucks,
to be washed by the minimally paid,
far away from where cannon preside,
row upon row;
as silent now as cotton bales.
They return uncounted,
a shrinkage of preshrunk sheets,
at the Sheraton.
The rooms, too, are taken.
By parents who,
while three sheets to the wind,
lie in do-not-disturb containment,
their heads pillowed against Picket’s Charge.
They send their young to throw pebbles in the pool.
Slippery children carrying towels not meant to leave the room.
They run circles around danger.
The older boys do cannonballs.
The tween girls worry about how their bodies change,
or not,
while staying at the Sheraton
Gettysburg’s diorama goes unseen,
the ranger’s talk, unheard.
History is left for a cooler season.
Tomorrow they leave for Hershey.
Tonight, they dine at dusk in the cafeteria.
Chlorinated children lose their retainers,
and watch more HBO
than their parents have prescribed,
and try to imagine what else goes on between the sheets
at the Sheraton.
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