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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Issue 103, Winter 2018

Fort Bragg Winter

When it snows, the entire post 
shuts down like there is no war 
going on. Perhaps the higher-ups 
decide to let those left behind, 
for the moment, savor the chance 
to shape snowmen with their children 
or lie beside another warm body. 
Probably it is lack of preparedness. 
What happens after: the snow melts, 
permeates fractures in the asphalt on 
Normandy, Ardennes, Bastogne, 
European places famous for dead men, 
now used as street names where, 
for the time being, no soldiers 
will be training. The snow sits
as water, freezes in frigid air 
into ice. What happens is the 
molecules expand, opening their 
arms like the universe, like all of us 
reaching out for someone to arrive, 
until the black asphalt breaks, and 
the soldiers of our hearts are 
back to work, cleaning up the pieces. 


Zachary Lunn reads “Fort Bragg Winter”

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Zachary Lunn

Zachary Lunn served two tours in Iraq as a medic with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. His writing appears in Carve, Pedestal Magazine, CONSEQUENCE, and elsewhere, and he earned an MFA from North Carolina State University.