Because he fell in love with the word unbearable. <br />Because he loathed shooting portraits of wrinkled <br />baby heads. Because of drinking <br />bad Michigan wine in his parents' basement, <br />chanting California, California, <br />California—a restless prayer. <br />Can I blame him for having no magic <br />diamonding his dead carbon <br />drone? For years he's punched <br />everything in his body, called this <br />event of bruised kinetics breaking, <br />freaking himself into a windmill— <br />glory blades for limbs. God, <br />he could spin himself new— <br />I've seen it. When he said Army, <br />I didn't ask why. And there was silence <br />jumping out the car window, <br />jettisoned prayers. Nobody said <br />killing. Nobody said combat <br />licking his ear at night. Should I <br />mention it's Christmas and the man's <br />my chosen family? If I say this <br />never happened, then does it <br />not happen for the narrator <br />ogling this story? If I say <br />please? If I say it again with <br />quietude, a deep hush that <br />quivers like a body in a bath towel <br />rioting, no reveling, in the cold <br />ripe morning? If I don't speak? <br />Squad Designated Marksman, the steadiest <br />shot: he's learning to guide bullets into <br />targets a kilometer away. When I said <br />unbearable in the first line I meant <br />visualizing the targets as boys <br />with no shoes—I meant years of <br />Xanax and night terrors. There is <br />zero-order to this poem. Reader, please <br />zoom back to the car and say blood.<br /><br />Stevie Edwards<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-photographer-with-a-ba-joins-the-army/
