Memorial Day

Before the parade,
a veteran
lit a cigarette,
saying:

Some of us
that went to war,
we enjoyed it.

Some of us missed it after it was done.

Consider what it took for us
to resettle ourselves
among you folks. Keeping that
kind of fun quiet isn’t easy.
We wanted to tell someone
about it, just to get past it.
But no one wanted to hear,
so we tried to forget.
Ever since the Towers, though,
no one can get enough of us.

We’re smoking together now.
No one’s sitting near us
because to smoke, these days,
is to translate undesirable wisdom
from a language
only marginally less taboo
than the warrior tongue.

Ok, I’m listening.
What was it like?
I ask him.

A blue fog rolls
from the old mouth.
Then:

Just like this,

and held up the cigarette.

I knew it was bad for me
but I did it anyway.
I started to do it
because
others did it.
I kept at it
because I couldn’t stop.

He looked
at
my shining eyes
and at
the butt
burning bright
in my own mouth.

You’d have done fine there,

he spat,
before
the band
drowned him out
while making my heart
float out of my chest
like a big
bad cloud
of Martian wind,
or delighted razors,
or something else
no one
could fully understand.