DISAPPEARING SOLDIERS
- —for M.J.C., MIA, Fallujah, Iraq, November 2004
1. PASSING
Old moon
In the new moon’s
Arms afterward
Your scent
In the seminar room
Corduroy & plaid
Each time
For a long time
Such cautionary
Togetherness
As if your Naval officer
Past No longer
Mattered
Had been enough
The bombing of that ship
You shirtless
At the edge of
A pronouncement
2. VOICE
You will not answer
I know
but the ringing
soothes me
the even intervals …
how will I know
you’ve left
if near me
your presence
is imperceptible
if not for mornings’
stillness this anguish
would disappear
with you
and never return
3. TAKING OFF
He falls from tall buildings
and hits bottom.
He’s afraid of heights
but not of falling,
not of the air
that passes through
his weightless,
invisible body.
He can’t say
if he’s landed,
if he’s still alive.
4. TOUCH
If only I had never known
any love
5. MARINE: GOD WANTS US TO BE TOGETHER OR HE WOULD NEVER HAVE INVENTED FITTED SHEETS
At noon on his day off
we meet at TJ’s Tattoos
next door to the boarded
up Gentleman’s Club
Rick or Bill or Chuck
he says as the morning
haze burns through
sun and a green canvas
covered backdoor past
a courtyard where the
owner tries to grow weed
we emerge to a woman
without legs who needs
help crossing the street
akin to don’t ask near
Camp Pendleton in
Oceanside CA for an
hour where my roommate
leaves to walk through
town to meet his marine
who’s sitting at a bench
watching a red horizon
6. KYOTO, ON SUICIDE
No one obeys the
counterintuitive
side of the road
autumn in late December
monks in colorful sandals
blue–skirted schoolgirls
scampering the mile
loop through the bright
orange torii and the
city glistening
below — an ocean
he’s been fantasizing
walking into
jumping into
7. satellite radio
anything but this noose
of the unknown. J,
some sign
some funny
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