Battle Dressings

Mongols wore silk shirts
realizing armor alone
was no defense against sorrows arrows.

Loose silk wrapped
around the marrow arrow
minimized injuries.

Eros Arrows could be pulled
out by tugging gently
on surrounding silk.

This allowed the
horrors arrow’s extraction
with less tearing of the flesh.

We too could address
our wounds arrow harrow
the ground till smooth.









Bonnie S. Kaplan is a native Angeleno and a longtime teacher of adults in the California corrections system. She holds an MFA in Performance Art from California College of Arts and Crafts. Her poems are published in The Squaw Valley Review Poetry Anthology 2011, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology (Split Oak Press, 2012), and This Assignment is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013). www.bonnieskaplan.com