Objection...

dedicated to Justin

green humidity and warfare:
Goldsboro summers in the shadow of Seymour.

Treetop fortifications and ground
campaigns, young boys with battle plans,
like madmen who always ran
around in the dark, stick fights for abstractions
like backyard honor, with sweet gum
and green pinecone projectiles fired from
arm powered rocket-launchers;
the artillery gave support. The hedges
were camouflage for the rural guerrillas (a tactical edge);
it provided cover for recon,
and intelligence is the difference between
capture and torture, or a clean
get-away: behind the garage and over the fence.

The F-15’s flew over as the sun set sky-blue pink, purple, yellow, and orange.

It’s a game that never really made much sense
to me. As I’ve looked on,
a witness to two short decades, it seems sure
that it’s no less deadly in our imaginations:
Bang bang, boom boom. You’re dead; lie down.

—only a little red button was pressed.