Soldier

Soldier
stands down
briefly,
puts aside
his magician’s gun,
exhausted from
participating in
disappearances.

Soldier
sits on a riverbank.
Soldier
thinks about how he
could disappear.

After a few more years
of this, we see him and find
he has.
He’s now a dad and
there’s not a drop
of that old magic
to be found.

Dad conjures,
sits on a porch,
laughs at his kids.

Once he knew
how vanishing
works, how worlds
can disappear.
That was
his life, his
riverbank, his
magic. This new
grimoire he’s writing,
these different spells…
it demands laughter,
it instead manifests
and creates.