22.1.05 NATHAN, Fallujah
Forrest Koch
I
His mother told him growing up
He would be a man longer than anything else.
And warned him he would be dead longer than that.
He has killed five
The first bullet in the head of a man
Who looked like the first boy
He ever kissed.
The third in the stomach of a woman.
Someone’s mother.
Fierceness marched her
Screaming in his direction.
The second bullet in a child
Small face
Seeming older
Than his grandfather’s.
II
He was ten
His father was teaching him
To suck it up and live life free of regret.
He remembers his grandfather’s dead face
And the tears
And the pit of his stomach
Empty. For years
He rocked himself to sleep
In hope of dreaming back his grandfather’s arms.
III
Today is an apology letter from
His mother.
She writes bright saffron sorrys.
Remembers the first time she caught him
Kissing a boy.
He was sixteen
Stumbling over his lips
He tense, fragile.
She ashamed.
She lost him that day,
She promises change.
IV
Today is a ten day old baby who sleeps nestled in dirty blankets
As flies buzz above her head.
Today is a home made of cans and mud where
Two little girls with dirt caked on their faces
Play with an old piece of tire throwing it back and forth
