What Was It Like?
Over-lit airport terminals
or the rifle range at night,
the first tracer
crackling in night vision
over pale green hills. Or—
a group of souls
preparing
to die together,
the plane shuddering
in its evasive bank,
our eyes knowing
for once
each other. Or—
relation based
not on preference
but direst need.
The livid explosion
we invited,
then flinched.
Thousands of miles.
Cadet
(West Point, N.Y.)
On restriction to barracks
for dereliction of duty
(otherwise known
as sleeping through classes),
you look beyond
the window.
Clad in gray
Civil War-era uniforms,
a broken succession
of nineteen-year-olds
walk through the snow
at right angles,
flinching at the chill
across their razor-burn,
the wind off the Hudson.
West of the river
atop Battle Monument
stands winged Fame,
her bronze pinions cut
into the overcast.
In your room
sits you.
A bit too warm,
the floor fresh-cleaned
with Mop & Glo,
dry-cleaned wool pants
hanging over
stacked tins
of shoe polish
in the congestion of New York
midwinter air.
You loved back then
to sleep, hovering
in un-location,
absolved until
the dread summed to
the impossibility
of being again
late for formation,
running cold water
then the razor
over that same
old rash—Now, somewhere
down the hallway
the boot-squeak,
hoot and snicker
of men making
their weekend exit
for nearby Newburgh,
the last door-slam,
that triumph
of silence
once again spreading
Zero Five-Thirty
(Fort Riley, KS)
From the hilltop down,
the base is rimmed by a crust
of bluish signs
glowing somewhat
appealingly at dawn—
pawn shops, strip clubs,
quick-cash stores.
The fragmented receptacles
for the nightly outflux
of dirty dollar bills,
leftover sand,
hard-ons and sweat.
Flitting between
blackout shades,
the vague milky secretions
of our half-drowned
dull and brightest, now
making their way back up
to formation.
Their bass-notes drift
across endless plains
of identical duplexes
where their families still sleep.
Sunrise comes soft
as a bloody nose.
Groups of men
jog past in squares.
