Not some nameless soldier, not this time.
He’s alive and he’s my brother.
Sean beat up boys in his class cause they looked at me.
One got a black eye when he sent me a Superman valentine.
He sold x in our garage, kept it in a shoebox, he was a
soldier for the American way. I didn’t know
how tiny ecstasy was til he showed it to me.
Now he’s the one with pins in his leg. They’re all
that keeps his shinbones together. He can’t fit
pants over this thing. Half a metal ladder sticking out.
I didn’t know what shrapnel was really until Sean handed me
a little bit of metal, smaller than his tongue ring.
As the skin heals, it forces
all those little bits out. He wanted me to have
something from inside of him. It looked like pepper,
black scratches and swollen skin,
all up his arm, back, side, right leg, neck, and half of his face.
The mortar missed his eyes and brain, and all of the major organs.
I guess there is a god. Sean had a white tiger tattooed on his ankle
before he went over. Now it’s missing half of its head
and the hind legs. I’m not going to ask him
where the rest of the skin went. Some of it is still there, anyway.
