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(New $50M Rehab Center Opens on Fort Sam Houston, CBS News, Jan 2007)
Wheeled onto the jet leaving
my town, another soldier
whose pruned body echoes earth
liberating itself from gravity.
Inside the cave of his grey
-hooded shirt he sweats
as might a ghost or cello.
As in another war when a baptism
and birthday party band wrapped
their music in black garbage bags
and dug deep beside the Lempa river.
There they stayed until the air emptied
of metal and fear. Only the air never.
One of the first things learned
by a possible jury is that you cannot be
a witness against yourself.
What then is a body? I raised
my right hand. I still have
a right hand, knees, skin that tries
to explain its own brine and marrow.
It’s tomorrow and my children want the game
they call you be the monster, I’ll be the kid.
The grown-ups I know still walk around
make-believing they are in one piece.
We waited so long
to be sure of something.
The song below flinched
a little from the cold.
The song below asking who now
owns his bones?
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