GHOSTS OF YPSILANTI
Ypsilanti casts long shadows
from Woodruff’s Grove
to The Norris Block.
Ghosts of Union dead
return to the ancient depot
and haunt the students,
the cyclists, the poets
of reconstruction hellfire dawn.
When those nervous boys
convened on River St.
before their southern odyssey,
when the bright-eyed youth
boarded those cars
heading to blood and destruction,
they boarded those cars
with smiles on their lips
and bayonets in their eyes.
South Mountain
and The Siege of Corinth
saw the red rivers of Ypsilanti,
the red deluge of Washtenaw County.
Those boys choked
the vertebrae of the Confederacy;
they cut off the head
of the Chattanooga Timber,
its fearful rattle
lonely and lost.
When Ypsilanti froze
in the ice of ’97,
the ice of ’02,
we stayed warm under the blankets
of Huron River stones,
under the blankets
of catfish, crappie, and carp.
When we were buried
in the snows of ’99,
we stayed warm
with the beer of Depot Town
and the pancakes of Cross St.
Those ghosts of Union dead
kept us warm as they haunted
the bell-tower
and rang their haunted song,
lonely and lost.
Andre F. Peltier (he/him) is a Lecturer III at Eastern Michigan University where he teaches literature and writing. He lives in Ypsilanti, MI, with his wife and children. His poetry has recently appeared in various publications like CP Quarterly, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Novus, About Place, and Fahmidan Journal, and most recently he has had a poem accepted by Lavender and Lime Literary. In his free time, he obsesses over soccer and comic books. @aandrefpeltier