Mark Madigan: “The Drumming Out”
THE DRUMMING OUT
Lexington, Virginia, 1977
Everything, before then, seemed such a game:
watching as the barber sheared long locks
from the head of a guy who started to cry;
or the long afternoons we spent learning
how to salute, to spit shine shoes,
or to follow the cadence of the Corporal’s voice
as he kept calling left, left, as we measured steps
along the parade field learning to march.
But startled awake one cold winter night
by the sharp steady rolls of a snare drum piercing
the warmth and the quiet—
and the clamor of thick fists pounding our doors—
they rousted us out to the concrete stoops
wearing little more than blankets or robes.
Down in the courtyard, the sound of the drum
kept drawing us in,
until it stopped with a sudden smack
and a stern-faced cadet in formal dress
marched his squad through Jackson Arch
and there in the silence of Old Barracks yard
barked out the Honor Court had met.
And as their terrible verdict was announced—
personal gain placed above honor, a reputation
ruined, a young man now expelled from school—
it was more than the cold night air
shivering my spine.
How could I sleep after hearing all that?
I kept turning in my small cot.
For six long weeks,
I sensed him lurking in the empty sinks
or along the parade field as we marched by,
the ghost of a young man I’d never met
whose memory, still, creeps into my life
though we were told never to utter his name.
Mark Madigan holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. His poems have previously appeared in American Scholar, Poetry, Tar River Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.