The boy has laid his Jacksons down,
so again I bend a car seat back. Only
now it’s different, because of the last words
from the radio, The first casualty
of the Gulf War.
The stone soldier’s here
with thickets of ice in his eyes,
with minutes escaping his ears like ants
and little wind between his cheeks.
Though he looks so clean and warm and arboreal,
he is just about to show the world
the way to fuck my brains out.
