Jason Boitnott

Great Uncle Andrew, the last living World War I vet
in Fillmore County, sat propped up by pillows
on a metal folding chair atop a flatbed trailer
to be floated before the world on Independence Day.

It took some effort and some convincing
to jack his 6′-something frame up,
for him to consider waving from that distant past:
a last-century relic dug up, dusted off, paraded around.

The pickup thunked into gear, and when the driver released
the brakes, the trailer’s pin bowed forward and spoke
like a Springfield rifle bolt pressed tight, ready to bite—
an unforgettable sound that even time can’t dissipate.

By the time the trailer rounded Bar-H onto Main,
Great Uncle Andrew was AWOL.

He stood under a Royals’ ball cap on a crowded corner
watching that empty Stars and Stripes float go by,
his hotdog with relish whittled to an inch,
his Coke still frothing.

Bio

Jason Boitnott is a lifetime rural Nebraskan, family man, twenty-eight-year educator (high school counselor), and livestock farmer. His poems can be found in recent or upcoming issues of Comstock Review, Midwest Review, Shot Glass Journal, Last Leaves, Split Rock Review, Poetry Rabble, and other journals.