The Boy

• I feel the pull of eighty pounds of body armor,
• Sweat and sand dried to my back and arms,
• I taste the sour-bitterness of bile in my throat.

• I imagine crowds in the street,
• Instead the road is clear for blocks
• I chew the hanging skin off my lips,
• My finger gropes the trigger.

• I hear the crack of a can of soda,
• Smashed underfoot as onto the street,
• Walks a boy of four or five, maybe,
• His feet are bare and black.

• I reach into my pocket for the Snickers,
• I had saved it from the dining hall,
• He stands in front of the truck,
• Close enough to see his eyes
• Dark eyes with hardly any white

• Thunder booms but the sky is blue
• Men are running into houses
• I duck into the truck
• My driver says to shoot--at what?
• My finger is frozen on the trigger
• All I see is the boy
• His body going limp as the IED
• explodes from under the street.

• Every day it's the same,
• All I see is the boy,
• His eyes as the body goes limp,
• Still to this day the boy is lying
• Stiff in the middle of flames as I
• Lie in the gunner's seat.