You remember how those giant
transport craft had once soared
one by one like eagles over your sandbox
where your model jets roared
missile strikes against tanks and toy soldiers.
You were not even born when
those Hercules C-130s had once landed
packed with aluminum cased coffins
draped in Red&White&Blue…
My poor cousin from the Blue Hen
state with its own Mason-Dixon line
(that so neatly divides the northern corporations
from southerners farming chickens),
you took the very first chance you could
to see the world after those evil Saracens
struck the WTC and Pentagon.
Now far from your Dover sand box
you play volleyball and soccer
with your fellow General Issue
next to shark-infested waters.
Some flew in from Af-ghan-ee-stan;
others got it easy in Ku-wait;
and like yourself, other warriors
are on weekend leave from I-raq.
“It’s not so bad…” you start off affirmatively
“but there’s really not too much
to do sometimes… not at all like
they say it is in the News.”
You pause a bit, staring off
over the dunes; you’ve said exactly
what you’ve been told to say…
toes fidgeting in the sand nervously.
“Yeah, it’s great to take a rest,
even if only for a couple of days, but
you ain’t allowed no more ‘dan two beers
per night!” Worse still, you’ve been granted
only one hour of shopping— transported
to a weird land where it’s dangerous
to even glance at the flash of a woman’s
eyes behind black shrouds hidden.
“At night… the latrine is a couple
hundred feet from the barracks …
If ya’ got ta’ go, ya’ got to take a flashlight
out to check for scorpions scamperin’
at your feet… but just lightin’
a match can make ya’ a real
sittin’ duck for snipers…”
(It would be a good several
months before the big bad News
began to murmur that kind of report…)
With a wistful smile you assert,
“You know I never dreamed
Dover to be so damn beautiful…
Had always wanted to get the hell out…
It’s only six more months
before I’ll be shipped back…”
—2005
The.American.Word. 