Dennis Trujillo
Strumming My Pain
—In the winter of 1973, Roberta Flack
released the hit song “Killing Me Softly.”
Bundles of laundry lay on the stoops
for plebes to deliver to rooms
of upperclassmen. Returning from class
I balanced my books and two bundles
and bounded up the metal staircase
of Company F4. Winter had arrived
at West Point, 1973. Soft snow blanched
the granite landscape. Delivering laundry
that cold day, I was struck motionless
in the hallway like one of the many
campus statues when I heard
“Killing Me Softly” from an upper-
classman’s room. The mesmerizing voice
and melody transfixed my heart
the way a whiteout in a forest
rivets the senses. For four minutes
I drank in the song that shimmered
like mist in the cavernous barracks
as if the universe somehow knew
it was the gift I needed most.
Dennis Trujillo is a former US Army soldier and middle/high school math teacher from Pueblo, Colorado. In 2010 he spontaneously began writing poetry not knowing where the spark came from. Since then his poems have appeared in more than seventy magazines, journals, and anthologies including Atlanta Review, KYSO Flash, and Sacred Cow. In 2016 he received nominations for both a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award.
Strumming My Pain
—In the winter of 1973, Roberta Flack
released the hit song “Killing Me Softly.”
Bundles of laundry lay on the stoops
for plebes to deliver to rooms
of upperclassmen. Returning from class
I balanced my books and two bundles
and bounded up the metal staircase
of Company F4. Winter had arrived
at West Point, 1973. Soft snow blanched
the granite landscape. Delivering laundry
that cold day, I was struck motionless
in the hallway like one of the many
campus statues when I heard
“Killing Me Softly” from an upper-
classman’s room. The mesmerizing voice
and melody transfixed my heart
the way a whiteout in a forest
rivets the senses. For four minutes
I drank in the song that shimmered
like mist in the cavernous barracks
as if the universe somehow knew
it was the gift I needed most.
Dennis Trujillo is a former US Army soldier and middle/high school math teacher from Pueblo, Colorado. In 2010 he spontaneously began writing poetry not knowing where the spark came from. Since then his poems have appeared in more than seventy magazines, journals, and anthologies including Atlanta Review, KYSO Flash, and Sacred Cow. In 2016 he received nominations for both a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award.