Following Deployment

Sleep felt like an exit wound.
Back in his country of origin
he drips from himself like blood,
toying with the faucet, finding the water
too hot at first — Fallujah under neon sun
playing August’s game of horseshoes —
then too cold like winter pennies
inside a leather jacket. A silver moon
doesn’t make us sleepy
or rich. It makes us worry
who might be seen or next.
Soldiers sleep without the curtains drawn,
boots on, wearing death like a costume
you can’t unzip
or like a scabbard with the sword inside
your buddy & no gold,
no glamour on the hilt.
 

Shadow at Noon

Backlight of the whiskey against me. The hand.
A moment draws its fingers through my hair
then away. I part my love with my lips,
his person ineffably here then gone —
I sew him into language so as to see
a wing’s smudge against a glass door,
fixing the ephemeral to a partition in the light.