Oh, And Poetry Too

Once upon a time it was a noble thing to be both warrior and poet… not so much anymore. I’m not that noble anyway. I’ve children in harm’s way and it tends to stress me out, and of course my wife is keen to instruct me, “See? You go volunteering for whatever, leave your family behind, and you JERK, it’s hard to be here alone.” Perhaps I do understand a little better how she felt while I was gone.

It is somehow more frightening to me, being here, safe – while my daughters serve now that I’m an old fart. I suppose serving in the military is sort of the family business for us. Although I wanted my daughters to be patriots, I had in mind them saying to a husband, “come back with your shield, or on it.” Instead, I had a daughter instruct me, “Poppy, why would you think that a woman’s life is somehow intrinsically more valuable than a man’s? Should we not be willing to give what any other citizen should be willing to give?” I don’t need to hear that from a little girl. Ok, so maybe I did. She’s a pretty tough kid. This is a poem she kind of liked – it’s dedicated to my two Amazons:

What Some Would Call Murder in Nicaragua,
A Contrarian View

“Guns” and I made insertion
Just off the coast
Where that smell,
That smell leaps full
Blown at the back of your throat —
You can taste it.

People think that coastal
Scent signals life, but it’s
Small things (microbes, seaweed, even
Crustaceans) dying and rotting
On the sand —
That’s what you smell,
That’s what you taste,
Death on the beach.

Seventy-two hours into our jungle
Creep, Billy “Guns", my spotter,
Tapped my leg and signed
“No target.” Mr. Esteban Morales
Wouldn’t die that day. A short-lived
Sigh of relief escaped my lips. Guns
Tapped my leg and signed
That we had a TOOP —

Target of Opportunity:
Acronym to strip the humanity
From a sanctioned target that’s
Not in the operations plan (Op Plan) —

One Frederico Manuel Esposito
Appeared from beneath the jungle canopy,
And the Op Plan changed that fast.

With the musty molder of vegetative carpet
In our noses, we belly crawled to a high
Vantage point. I glassed the clot of people
Being harangued by Mr. Esposito,
My new TOOP, target, or tango.
Guns ranged the target. Whispered,
“Seven-two-zero.”

715 meters away, an old man
Appeared in the lower left quadrant
Of my scope. Standing there,
About five meters from the target,
The old man was quiet,
Sallow skinned,
Sunken cheeked,
A skull above those —
Those coat-hanger arms
Cradling that little boy.
Both their vacant stares
Staring through the cross
Hairs on the wrong end of my scope.

Watching Frederico stride toward me,
He silently screamed and slapped
The old man, who stumbled,
Strained to keep the cradle about the boy
As the imagined snap of flesh on flesh
Made its way to my ears.

I’ve been taught to aim for center body mass,
To put a round through the heart.
Instead, after a final range check,
I gifted Frederico with a new asshole,
A puckered little hole between his eyes
That ripped out the back of his smirking face.

I wondered if the old man
Heard the supersonic pop of the round
As it rifled by his head
To bloom the red
Of death
Behind him.

I did see the old man’s eyebrows arch,
I saw the fire come to his eyes
As he watched Frederico slump to the ground.

A toothy grin broke the old man’s face
At the karmic joke that visited
Our one-time trainee, Frederico.

I smiled with him —
It felt good
To feel right
About a killing.