PHASES OF ERASURE: A SOLDIER’S JOURNEY
I. Phase Line Whiskey
“Love” was the first word uttered after “Mama” and “Papa,”
who scratched your babbling language into a memory book
to mark milestones from your childhood, a dictionary that grew
wide as distance between stars. The first time a new principle
was introduced—gravity keeps us down; it’s impossible
to disappear—you always questioned why. Your parents
encouraged you to walk, to run, to leap. Your mind knew
nothing of boundaries, the barriers preventing fantasies
from becoming real. In your world, matters of the soul
harmonized with crickets’ heartbeats. When neighborhood kids
trampled the line of daylilies by the duck pond, you cried,
confused by cheerful shows of power and dominance.
Your lust was for all things green and growing. Not a thing
flew in the blue sky that did not make you want to soar.
Fireworks on Fourth of July made you think of kaleidoscopes—
the sparkled bombs exploding high up in the black—and
the tattered, tumbling, cardboard shrapnel of falling leaves.
Dreams full of joy, a boy in your pajamas flying out of bed,
no pain when you thudded to the carpet in a room filled
with Matchbox cars and toy soldiers. Your last thought
on nights when the full moon swallowed your window,
wondering if tomorrow you might wake up on its foreign soil,
wondering whether life would be cockeyed peering down through
your window like a mourner peeking into a grave or if
your beating heart would still find magic among its craters.
God knows how many times you took apart toasters and clocks,
having to know what slows the hour hand, which cog locks in
with which gear to combat the slippage of seconds.
And how many times you picked through trash cans,
searching every nook, prying apart shadows until
each hidden treasure becomes yours. The only enemy
you’d ever known was ignorance; the only mystery:
how every unturned stone did not ignite everyone’s curiosity.
“Who can hide the longest?” was your favorite
game, the cavern behind your captain’s bed becoming
an improvised fort in which you’d sit for hours,
imagining devices that might make you invisible,
that might make your ridiculous wants come true.
You longed to turn the magic spinning through your body
into something tangible, an overcoat you could drape
over inanimate objects to give them life, to fill
every empty space with ideas stitched from the fabric
of your dictionary, until the last void stoppers with
the very last word. Your parents took away your only pet,
a turtle, after exploring fingers got stuck a third time
in its shell. Asking, “But what is inside?” You hated
not touching the answer, something so full of possibility.
II. Phase Line Alpha
“Love” was the first word
scratched
from your dictionary
the first principle
to disappear . Your parents
knew
nothing of the
real world, matters of the
heart
trampled by
power and
lust . Not a thing
flew in the blue sky that did not make you
think of
bombs and
shrapnel .
Dreams of
pain filled
Your
nights ,
wondering if tomorrow foreign soil
would be
your grave
your beating heart
knows how time
slows in
combat
how
every shadow
becomes The enemy
how every unturned stone
can hide
an improvised
device that
wants
to turn your body
into an
inanimate object , to
empty
your dictionary, until the
last word
in its shell is hate
.
III. Phase Line Romeo
nothing
matters
Not
the blue sky not
Dreams of
tomorrow
your
beating heart
slows
becomes
stone
—from Rattle #58, Winter 2017
__________
Bill Glose: “For ten years after serving in the Army, I followed the example of my father, a Vietnam veteran, and kept my experiences as a combat platoon leader bottled inside. Then I started attending open mics where each time a poet shared his or her personal burden the crowd would lift them up. It was then I started writing my war, the long-kept secrets and the hidden pains leaking out one cathartic driblet at a time.” (web)
