Ohio Connections Literary Exhibit
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Another Ohio Town
By Robert DeMott
Nothing is beyond.
—James Wright, May 4, 1970
There were casualties that year without end,
but the war, nameless, was mostly in my head . . .
Sreets of another Ohio town turned grey,
faces disappeared, beyond, in a trance of heat,
buildings burned, and I could smell that smell:
near the muddy Hocking, river of crooked things,
we, too, burned in a cloak of flame
then woke uneasy in garments of smoke,
and blood, too dark, too thick, for words,
bloomed like sumac in the bellies of rusted cars.
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