ARRvol34 master reduced - Flipbook - Page 118
Recollection of the Second Gulf War,
Conveyed over Whiskey
After a year at sea, moonlight has no consequence;
Nothing follows but reflections
in a wake,
A wave, half-green and glowing;
The stars start to be
stars,
And the salt sting stops speaking. Drinking
The vision is all – all you’re left with.
He talked like this for hours, staring
At his resin-oil filled glass, the crazed
Twitching circuit twisting
His mouth’s almost rusted screws
Into a mechanical sneer at random moments,
You can steal anything from the sea
but silence.
Nights won’t bear inscription, the horizons
Beggar text, and you couldn’t write
on ripples,
Couldn’t ask or answer the jewels, the burning
sky,
The lying dawn off to port, like a torch.
His cigarette flitted, glowing, silently
Over, across, between gnarled fingers
That had been soft when we were young.
Soon, moonlight turns away. The burning
eyes
Blink from the mirror air, staring,
some falling toward some end, but watching
even then.
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