!100! —FOB Cobra
1.
!10! Wolfey’s head inside
his duffel. !50! He’s looking
for headphones. It’s hell,
I’d said, hearing
that Pantera-sounding-shit
!10! blast from your laptop speakers. His head’s
in that duffel still when
!10! we hear the air
outside swallow
itself. !50! & the explosion, the
boom: my stomach
pumped quick
!10! with one quick
wind-gust.
2.
!10! Get down, he whispers as if
it matters.
!10! We get down
like dogs because the sandbags
we’d stacked outside,
!10! half-assed,
are five-feet high. !50! & then
we hug the floor.
3.
!10! From here, I see
a mound of baby powder left
where Lemon likes to stand
& shake too much
!10! on his crotch.
4.
With our rifles we run
from the tent, heads down,
!10! my hand on Wolfey’s back
!10! in the desert night so dark
I can’t see his lunging shape.
!10! Gathered against
Hesco walls of dirt,
our platoon crouches,
silent, listening for the next noise metal
!50! in the sky will make.
5.
!10! I turn the switch—the Nods
click. !50! Now I see:
my platoon’s collage
!50! of camouflaged bodies:
static-green,
!10! wedged against
dirt-barriers.
It is just
!50! our first. We wait.
Everyone
shuts up. Everyone
!10! holds still.
Some men hold on to the gravel.