Read Online Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin Powers - Free Book Online
Authors: Kevin Powers
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Meditation on a Main Supply Route
I recall Route Tampa going on
in a straight line all the way
out of the war.
A hundred MSRs
with names once so unpronounceable
they are now called Chevy and Toyota;
their attendant smells
and voices arrive
in such disparate places
as Danville, Virginia;
Monterey, California;
Steubenville, Ohio;
Weslaco, Texas;
Fayettevilles
of both North Carolina
and of Arkansas;
the Bronx, New York,
where Curtis Jeffersonâs
cauterized face still burns
as he wraps his lips
around a straw to drink his juice
and his muscles wither and he wishes
he had died instead of living
houseboundbedboundmindboundbodybound
like a child, watching
as his mother watched
the roads, pitted and seeded,
arrive as one road in front of his house,
get out of a black sedan
with GOVERNMENT USE license plates
and become two men
walking up the front steps
of the converted brownstone,
where they wait. And the roads
reach out to Steven Abernathy
in the factory where he works,
after, on C shift, forever, and Steven
saying to the old intractable drunks he works with
that all pain is phantom and thatâs all
as he cleats the red knuckle of his leg
into the stirrup above the plastic rest of it,
before they take him to the VFW post
for a PBR on them at least twice a week,
now almost daily for a month,
arriving in the glare of six a.m. light
off the quarter panels of their rusted trucks.
Sometimes by noon the old men say Vietnam
and he says, I lost my leg
on the goddamn MSR and old Earl Yates says,
Naw, they took it, the fuckers.
 Â
I am home and whole, so to speak.
The streetlights are in place along the avenue
just as I remembered
and just as I remember
there is tar slick on the poles
because it has rained. It doesnât matter.
I know these roads will work
their way to me. They may arrive
right here, at this small circle of light
folding in on itself where brick
and broken sidewalk meet.
So, I must be prepared. But I canât remember
how to be alive. It has begun
to rain so hard I fear Iâll drown.
I guess we ought to
take these pennies off our eyes,
strike into them new likenesses;
toss them with new wishes
into whatever water can be found.
Improvised Explosive Device
The blast from an improvised explosive device moves at 13,000 mph, gets as hot as 7,000 degrees and creates 400 tons of pressure per square inch. âNo one survives that. Weâre trying to save the kids at 25 meters and beyond.â
âRonald Glasser in the Army Times
If this poem had wires
coming out of it,
you would not read it.
If the words in this poem were made
of metal, if you could see
the mechanics of their curvature,
you would hope
they would stay covered
by whatever paper rested
in the trash pile they were hidden in.
But words or wires would lead you still
to fields of grass between white buildings.
Â
If this poem were made of metal and you read it, if you did
decide to read or hear the words, you would see wires
where there were none,
you would pick up the slack of words, you would reel
them in, pull
loose lines
until you stood in that dry field,
where youâd sweat. You would wonder how you looked
from rooftop level, if you had been targeted.
If these words were buried beneath debris, you would
ask specific questions, like, am I in a field of words?
What will happen if they are unearthed?
Is the entire goddamn country full of them?
Prefer that they be words, not wires, not made of metal,
which is almost always trouble. If these words should lead you
to the rough center of a field,
youâll stand half-blind
from the bright light off white buildings,
still holding the slack line in your hand,
wondering if you have been chosen.
Youâll realize that you both have been and not,
and that an accident is as much of a choice
as saying, âI am going to read this poem.â
 Â
If this poem had wires coming out of
I recall Route Tampa going on
in a straight line all the way
out of the war.
A hundred MSRs
with names once so unpronounceable
they are now called Chevy and Toyota;
their attendant smells
and voices arrive
in such disparate places
as Danville, Virginia;
Monterey, California;
Steubenville, Ohio;
Weslaco, Texas;
Fayettevilles
of both North Carolina
and of Arkansas;
the Bronx, New York,
where Curtis Jeffersonâs
cauterized face still burns
as he wraps his lips
around a straw to drink his juice
and his muscles wither and he wishes
he had died instead of living
houseboundbedboundmindboundbodybound
like a child, watching
as his mother watched
the roads, pitted and seeded,
arrive as one road in front of his house,
get out of a black sedan
with GOVERNMENT USE license plates
and become two men
walking up the front steps
of the converted brownstone,
where they wait. And the roads
reach out to Steven Abernathy
in the factory where he works,
after, on C shift, forever, and Steven
saying to the old intractable drunks he works with
that all pain is phantom and thatâs all
as he cleats the red knuckle of his leg
into the stirrup above the plastic rest of it,
before they take him to the VFW post
for a PBR on them at least twice a week,
now almost daily for a month,
arriving in the glare of six a.m. light
off the quarter panels of their rusted trucks.
Sometimes by noon the old men say Vietnam
and he says, I lost my leg
on the goddamn MSR and old Earl Yates says,
Naw, they took it, the fuckers.
 Â
I am home and whole, so to speak.
The streetlights are in place along the avenue
just as I remembered
and just as I remember
there is tar slick on the poles
because it has rained. It doesnât matter.
I know these roads will work
their way to me. They may arrive
right here, at this small circle of light
folding in on itself where brick
and broken sidewalk meet.
So, I must be prepared. But I canât remember
how to be alive. It has begun
to rain so hard I fear Iâll drown.
I guess we ought to
take these pennies off our eyes,
strike into them new likenesses;
toss them with new wishes
into whatever water can be found.
Improvised Explosive Device
The blast from an improvised explosive device moves at 13,000 mph, gets as hot as 7,000 degrees and creates 400 tons of pressure per square inch. âNo one survives that. Weâre trying to save the kids at 25 meters and beyond.â
âRonald Glasser in the Army Times
If this poem had wires
coming out of it,
you would not read it.
If the words in this poem were made
of metal, if you could see
the mechanics of their curvature,
you would hope
they would stay covered
by whatever paper rested
in the trash pile they were hidden in.
But words or wires would lead you still
to fields of grass between white buildings.
Â
If this poem were made of metal and you read it, if you did
decide to read or hear the words, you would see wires
where there were none,
you would pick up the slack of words, you would reel
them in, pull
loose lines
until you stood in that dry field,
where youâd sweat. You would wonder how you looked
from rooftop level, if you had been targeted.
If these words were buried beneath debris, you would
ask specific questions, like, am I in a field of words?
What will happen if they are unearthed?
Is the entire goddamn country full of them?
Prefer that they be words, not wires, not made of metal,
which is almost always trouble. If these words should lead you
to the rough center of a field,
youâll stand half-blind
from the bright light off white buildings,
still holding the slack line in your hand,
wondering if you have been chosen.
Youâll realize that you both have been and not,
and that an accident is as much of a choice
as saying, âI am going to read this poem.â
 Â
If this poem had wires coming out of
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