This Expert

Another November Powm

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I watched this expert on TV

talk of Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg,

Pickett's Charge.

His gray teeth

glinted gold 

when he sometimes smiled.

I thought of this expert,

alone and aghast,

prone and helpless

in his dentist's chair,

waiting the indifferent drill

above argument or scorn,

comforting himself

with the visage of a young soldier shot

though the jaw, slowly greeting death.