If there’s something in the milk
then the milk ain’t clean and you are standing in ruins.
My boot on grass won’t grow roots—
boot in sand
erodes foot-flesh
so when spirits hits boot—
its already home.
Home is an intersection
of joy and pain
so boots gotta run—
like Whitehouse paint.
When I stand in ruins—praise God
that I cannot tell a difference
between the weeping and the meaning
that teaches me reality.
I wanna see scars.
I think those children
from Ramadi,
who can’t be trusted
with the liability
of full stomachs,
had best be getting
home now.
The little boy from Jaffa—
whose broken arm I set—
he didn’t know
his name.
All he knew—
the family
once murdered
grew green
stalks,
meaty eyes,
and lived in
the flowers.
One time
I saw an Iraqi kid bleed
through five shirts when
I couldn’t pray loud enough
in Latin or Arabic to make
his blood stop.
Then limply left
his body, bled out in the sands—
I realize I’m bawling,
staggering around blur-eyed,
and don’t know where my rifle is.
I don’t really believe
in preventative medicine—
yearly checkups, crushed
up herbs, rabbits
feet, chicken bones
and going to church.
Not cause I don’t believe
in God. Cause I don’t believe
in too much
preemptive fucking around.
I believe in battlefield medicine—
artery clamps, quick
clot, and syringes dripping
with morphine.
I believe my life used to be
a lot more clean—
single-razor-blade-shaves
and edge-dressed cloraframs
black like burning forests
After plasma transfusions
from navy docs,
out processing papers
and S-3 shops, pain
pill bottles, and fentanyl lollipops
I still remember the quickclot
is for the artery, when the bleeding
doesn’t stop.