Poetry

Bill Glose was born into an air force family and spent his childhood on military bases overseas. He served in the Gulf War as an infantry combat platoon leader, and in his five years as a paratrooper he experienced approximately sixty jumps and only one tree landing. Glose is the author of the poetry collection The Human Touch, and his story “Letting Go” received the F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Award. He was named the Daily Press Poet Laureate in 2011.


Photograph by Dawn Sullivan-West.

Four Poems

by Bill Glose

Half a Man

Head canted back, resting
on a pillow of sand. Just like
sleeping. Except for empty
eye sockets, flies skittering
in and out of his nose.
No meat below his sternum,
only a knobby string of spine
pointing at us, accusingly.
We stood in a half-circle,
willing our eyes
to be just as lifeless.

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