From The Front

Fresh from
the outdoors,
from the battlefield,
he came. He looked
nervy, currents on his bare arms
and sparks in his mouth.
He must have had a lot of nerve
to dare to come in
here.  It was our home and we
scare easy. He must have known that.
He must have been cold and
not cared.

We watched him sit in the back
of the cruiser.  The cops said
that during cold snaps, on the nights
when sleeping outside is a suicide mission,
they get at least a call a night like ours
of someone breaking into somewhere warmer
to sleep.

“At least he’ll be warm in jail,”
I told the family.  Everyone
tells their family that.
We tell ourselves
that and whatever else works

when the truth is
that seeing his cable arms
and their electrical sketchy twitch skin,
his gun-blue cheeks and his jaw set hard,
reminds us of how close to us
the war rages, and we
shame ourselves but have to admit
we don’t care as much for him
as we do for how close he got to us,
and wish
that however cold he was,
he’d just kept it to himself.