Lawrence Blake

A thud. The rattling reverberation 
of my body’s fluttering promise to itself 
lands against the internal armor of bone,
tendon, and muscle—encased in dusty
plates and layers, that grip the heaving
sternum in a grating, grain-riddled hug.

Between the call and response—inhale,
exhale—two pulses, two pumps—
the blind winged carcass of loitering menace
pitches itself to the earth. A Dervish dance
of disarticulated metal, fuel, and wood
is caught by a tree, alive amid stone. 

Those towering T-Walls which rise in the dark, 
concrete that casts shadow on scorched grass, mark
where this fledgling bark and branch stands watch.
Seeking the sky and sun in the act of becoming
ancient. Its arms reaching out over this tunnel—
a bunker, sandbagged and black; my channeled coffin.

Another thud, the echo of the one before,
alighting against still intact gristle and bone.
I heave with breath, the weight of bullets,
Kevlar, and quick clot wrappings stuffed
into the pockets of nylon webbing, which drapes
against my body like a shroud of cordite and brass.

As I peek out into the raging quiet of night, I smell
fuel and plastic. It casts a caustic torrent of 
liquid artificial life down the once-pristine body
of this tree. A martyr that breathed for the world
now ebbs its life into the earth. Roots upon roots
still pulling water from the soil as my heart beats.