[1] Draft

 

 

He draws a card. Arm, the card says. 

They remove his arm. He draws 

another card. Army, the card says. 

They give him a tin can and a hand 

grenade. His plane is waiting. The 

blood is wet.

 

 

[2] Belittling a Symphony of Still  

 

 

The soldier empties the powder from 

his grenade and fills it instead with 

wind. He triggers the pin and swallows 

the pin and spins clarity with prayer. 

When the grenade explodes, it snows 

forever.  Soldier of cold, the grenade 

explodes. A drummer boy on a park 

bench stuffs his trombone with grapes.

 

 

[3] The Hill with the Gravel and the Dismantled Car

 

 

When the soldier wakes, he orders 

more grenades. Before the grenades 

arrive, he dies. He becomes for the 

other soldiers a toy. He becomes a 

lung. The grenades unsung are placed 

around him in a circle. His daughter 

arrives and his favorite drill sergeant 

arrives and both poise coins over the 

soldier's eyes. They look the other way 

and they swallow his pins. Enough is 

on the line to find a new ride home.

 

 

 

[4] Painful Enough to Paint

 

Years after the war, a rocket falls to 

earth, onto a calm garden where the 

soldier imagines a pond. He's gone. 

His wife is down the street at the teeth 

store, singing a song about a grenade 

painful enough to paint.