Jeff Bagato – Contesting the Homeland

Contesting the Homeland                           En pointe, à pied,                                        the soldiers pirouette                                                        across no man’s land,                               cutting entrechats over barbed                wire loops and the remains                                             of comrades potted deep                                                              in mud;                               his foxhole abandoned              and gaping clear, that one                                        saddest private took the barbs                                                    with a grand jeté;                                 arms curling his head,                  he joined the ballerina                                           battalion— […]