After years of walking funny,
of sleeping sideways like a shrub,
of trying to transform myself into a panther,
the morning I woke transformed into a panther
wasn’t all that different from waking transformed
into a jellyfish, dune grass, into nothing at all.
Same sun in the eyes, same clouds bleeting
like lambs, bleeting like lions eating lambs,
same stupid choice of shirts:
blue or brown,
would I be hiding in the sky or ground
which finally didn’t matter much
because I tore them all apart. This was in ’42.
We felt pretty rowdy in ’42.
There was the war. There was stacking stuff
upon the endless courseways. Nobody was eating
chocolate, then suddenly chocolate was okay.
There was deferment, inkblots, obscure
forestries. The Effort. Kids today,
they look at a rock and think nothing,
think a rock can’t just rise up and smote.
There wasn’t all this equipment you see advertised
even in commercials about killing ants.
Still we carried plenty.
Detonators. French letters. Atropine.
Philosophy tracts. A thing is never fully itself
but often talks to itself in code.
You’d dream you were surrounded by torn-open bodies
and wake surrounded by torn-open bodies until
the spiritual seemed a preferable dwelling
but purely in a terrifying manner like a leaf
falling from a tree or a stranger
speaking your name.
Sure, I believe in life after death,
it’s just that this life after death
is so much like the last one, no one notices
they’ve already died bunches of times. Same
trenches. Corrosive fogs. Same protective coatings
nearly impossible to get off and when you do,
you’ve damaged what’s inside. Actually I never
changed into a panther. I just said that
to get your attention like someone yelling Fire
when there’s really not even a spark,
in fact it’s rained solid for weeks.