Marks Air Force Base, 1958
I put in for Hawaii,
California. Instead,
they sent me to Alaska.
We were to monitor for bombers
with the help of four ghosts
on the mountain behind us.
They said we were heroes, protecting
America from Soviets. They called it
Cold War, but as far as I saw,
it was just cold. No one told us
what it was like to live
three months in darkness.
When the long night hit, we’d write
letters, play cards, shoot the shit.
But conversation has its limits.
We started drinking. Sleeping.
We felt forgotten. Some of us
stopped wishing for spring.
Do you remember that story of how
the cook went missing in a blizzard,
and no one knew what happened to him?
What I didn’t tell you was that
a week before, he’d quit eating.
He left a note in his locker.
You see now—there were
some cold, dark things
I protected you from.
Morrow Dowdle is the author of the chapbook Hardly (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and the forthcoming chapbook Missing Woman. Their poems have been featured or are forthcoming in Rattle, New York Quarterly, Southeast Review, and Stonecoast Review, among other literary journals. They have been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. They run a performance series which features historically marginalized voices. A former physician assistant and member of the U.S. Air Force, they are now pursuing their creative writing MFA at Spalding University. They live in Durham, NC. Find out more on Instagram @morrowdowdle.
ISSUED 