The fitful sleep of steak and silver. We
man the monitors of dreaming, on this outpost
of fatherhood. The battlements of silence.
A friend opens a bottle of red. We’ve lived
in this dome so long it seems like freedom.
We know the crackle of distant gunfire
heightened by stereo, the plith of dust,
each stray bullet pirouetting in slo-mo.
Our fathers and brothers wear the flak jacket
of medal and shrapnel. We don the softness
of palms, the odor of diaper wipes. Somewhere
outside, someone’s brother’s buried
a box he won’t tell us where. Inside the box
is. We gird the landscape in the soundtrack
of earbuds, but inside the box is a baby
radio hissing. Inside is the rattle unjawed.
In the rings of our suburbs, outside the zone
of ground zeroes. The baby is stirring, not
crying. Inside the well of our glasses,
the smutch of discernable breathing.