From The Front

Originally posted 1/6/2014.

He looked nervy,
currents tripping 
up and down his bare arms,
sparks in his mouth.

He 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 settle into
the back of the cruiser.  The cops said
that during cold snaps
when sleeping outside is a suicide mission,
they get more than a few calls
about 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.

We know it shames us 
to have to admit
we don’t care as much for him as we do
for how close he got to us,

and to admit that we wish
that however cold he was,
he’d just kept it to himself.