IN THE BATTALION TOC THE SOLDIERS LIVED

on Monsters, Five-Hour Energy drinks,
and Mountain Dews.

They stacked the empties
into carnival pyramids,
duct-taped paper wads,
and knocked them down to win
a nightly prize of Slim Jims
and corn nuts.

The radio squawked:
a distant, caged
Bird of Paradise.

Like zoo
lions sated on butchered beef,
the soldiers snapped away the flies.
They sat
bogged in their tonnage.

They didn’t even
hear the rocket pass.

It pierced and split
a nearby shed,
detonated a stack
of camouflage net.

The soldiers looked
in the direction of the blast –
a plywood wall
papered with Baghdad maps –

rose as if they rehearsed
to slide their chairs
as one
choreographed troupe.

They left.

They all left

the shift log
unattended,
the radio,
the men
on the other end
demanding

            What the fuck,
            over?

They discharged two coughing extinguishers
against the flaming wooden frame,

the nets which lifted and swayed
in the blaze
like Ferris wheel seats

to descend and drape
adjacent conexes,
port-a-johns.

In the TOC
an oscillating fan scanned the empty room,
thumbed the logs,
blew curtly
into the discarded hand mics.





Paul David Adkins lives in New York and works as a counselor.