Gray

Her hands beat muscle
with the tenderness of a mallet.

Tendons, on the table, connect
each corner of the present world –

lats curl, hamstrings spasm, calves flex
and one foot howls itself into a crescent.

My jaw aches with …

Bone-weary eyes scanned the soil and sky for the corner flash
of tracer rounds, night in, night out. The rotor’s muffled hum
betrayed a darkened metal blended against the black,
or, overhead the searchlights’ crescent sweep.

Smitty scanned while Cote …

“Stay watchful,” he says to no one, to the eyes
that would watch, fighting sleep in the intersection
of blood and dust.

Friendlies pass with a glance toward the crest
and a false smile that means, “don’t shoot.”

Rakes, shovels …