Tonya Peterson

Convoy

Imitation of Levis’ Shiloh poem

My comrades turned to look for me in the rear of the jeep, where
void of my body, two sea bags flanked shards of blood tinted
glass dusting the seat like confetti at a homecoming dance:

I walk the yellow line and he shouts, “just lay down”
not because of the superiority he had over me but
he was trying to keep me from flying away

to slumber on the gravel wrapped in exhaust fumes, I was
rocked to sleep by humming cars wheezing by my head
as the smell of blood escaped my ear,

“shhh, lay still” I hear her voice whisper secrets only I could feel,
wrapped in pulp of crystal clear dusk, an alarm bell pulses in me,
“stay and see.” Something has me tethered to the stench of

gauze around four inch tubes of plastic jammed into veins;
I taste metallic syrup with dirty oil scrubbed into
skin by asphalt with a fresh lemon’s sting,

in death they can all stare at me while paramedics tear at camouflage and
boot laces, looking for the breath that was not coming, I hide under
cover with a thick braid to shield me from shades of Periwinkle;

in death I swim with a stream of crippled tapeworms, backstroke
into a lantern pitched high above my parent’s room;
look through the window smudged with folds and

fall from the sky into the doors, sing along to the music of the
ambulance. Cradle me. A mask too tight and air tasting of
sugar cookies Mom makes every holiday -

I choke on granules of breath.



 

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Tonya Peterson is a senior at Lewis University in the English Department’s Creative Writing program. She enjoys reading and writing and plans to attend graduate school to continue to expand her writing and literature knowledge. Her poem “Convoy” was first published on Poetry Ark’s online anthology of poems. Tonya also enjoys spending time with her family and attending events and activities her two children are involved with.