Fuse


Shift leader picked up a curbside stone.
It did not explode.

Shift leader picked up an MRE heater,
tossed from the convoy.
It did not explode.

Shift leader picked up a prayer rug
with the penitent pilgrim's
chain rusted by platelet, forgotten; why?
It did not explode.

Shift leader picked up the body of a dog
tarred to the pavement with blood and bone and frothing
new, young maggots in the skull.
It did not explode.

Shift leader picked up a shredded tire,
a tumbleweed, a fedora, buy accutane pills (yes), the leg of a camel, like an absence,
looking out over the wasteland toward
whole camels, whole vistas, whole.
It did not explode.

Shift leader picked up a magazine,
the marbled hatchwork of Kevlar, door,
turned from the cartwheel sun all his hydrogen, oxygen, trace metals,
the magic of modern chemistry can't
Nobel in its mourning, laureate.


* Benjamin Buchholz's fiction, non-fiction and poetry largely deal with war and the changes wrought by war in young men and women. For more details visit http://benjaminbuchholz.blogspot.com