Recruitment Officer at Harvest Time
He scooped the cream, he picked the crop
harvesting the room of capable men
at country dances in Nineteen Fourteen
peeking beneath rough shirt-sleeves
and dusty britches to the flower of youth
ripening: gleaming calves, stony chests
stacked tight into a row of faithful friends
stiff-collared to a man, in common stubbornness.
Returning later, he gleaned the rest:
the dreamers, loungers, older men stiff of limb
gathering them all in, taking their hand
winning them over with his uniform, his gratitude
his manners, even the whisper of his trousers
murmuring temptations to stand and link hands
like bashful girls in daisy chains, dancing slowly
out of the room, into the harvest of distant tombs.