The latest issue of Poetry has the following poem by Iraq war veteran Kevin C. Powers:
Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting
BY KEVIN C. POWERS
I tell her I love her like not killing
or ten minutes of sleep
beneath the low rooftop wall
on which my rifle rests.
I tell her in a letter that will stink,
when she opens it,
of bolt oil and burned powder
and the things it says.
I tell her how Pvt. Bartle says, offhand,
that war is just us
making little pieces of metal
pass through each other.