stumps at the VA hospital

[[ previous poem in verse/lyrics form, with two sections ]]

= = = = =

Wait for us here.

in the designated area

Don't make a move

or we may never find you.

Hang on to your balls, boy,

We're going in.

A man with a stump

for a leg wheels in

stump-first down the corridor

stage left.

A woman with more stumps,

fewer limbs, rolls in

propelled by a nurse

stage right.

The two cross in front of me

and pass with no sign

they notice me or anything.

Hang on to your balls, boy,

We're going in.

= = = = =

Now I am running

through all the possibilities

like it's my job to shoot

these action movies

A prehistoric helicopter shot out of the sky

by a man with a cylinder at his ear like he was listening

A slow fat cargo plane with entrance and exit wounds

by three gunners who simply can not believe their luck

A pressure-sensitive mine planted long ago

by a dead man and forgotten until just the other day.

An IED laid yesterday with a telephone trigger

for the man whose only job was to watch and to push

A sniper hidden, still, and unsuspected

'til he fires off one, two, three from a mile away

I can't stop running

through all the possibilities.

I can't stop running

through all the possibilities.