Civvies — Summary

a night vision of things after the war

other places call out of uniform

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The title, "Civvies," is slang for civilian clothes, and that small word sets the poem's whole tension. The speaker describes "a night vision / of things after the war": a dream, or perhaps a waking imagining in the dark, of what comes once the fighting stops. It's a hopeful picture on the surface, since the war is over and people can change out of their uniforms.

But the second stanza complicates that. "Other places call / out of uniform" can be read a few ways. Perhaps other places, other lives, are calling the speaker away from the soldier's role. Or the phrase may hint that the call itself is strange or unsettling, since a uniform gives order and identity, and taking it off means facing who you are without it.

The mood is quiet, uncertain and a little dreamlike. The short lines and the lack of punctuation leave a lot unsaid, so the feeling of relief mixes with unease. The poem doesn't say whether the future it imagines is a comfort or a worry, and that open question stays with the reader.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Plea bargain

I hear half a beat of drum to serve time have half a hope in the meantime praise God
DreamyDave Bonta

Cibola 3

I awake in the dark and shake free of sheets & blankets, of down-filled quilt. The rituals of waking– the long, hot shower, the coffee–give
ContemplativeDave Bonta

In good light

On a maple’s pale bark, a zigzag ladder—old tooth-marks from a wandering snail? Green islands of moss