War History

We fought last night,
sheets and blankets and pillows
askew. Then slept.
My nightmares were mild
compared to such wild
Hell – woke
sweating in some far
corner of a foreign field!
trenches of night between us.
I crawled belly down
toward where I thought
I saw you last,
removed a pillow carefully
for fear it would explode;
felt you out long last
curled up in a dug-out of blankets
reached for your hand –

crawled in from no man’s land.

'War History' from Doubtless: New and Selected Poems (Craig Potton Publishing, 2008), Sam Hunt 2008, used by permission of the author. Recording from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archives (2004).

Sam Hunt is a rare commodity in New Zealand: a ham actor playing to the gallery and willing to go out on a limb; he’s also a ...

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