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Vo l . 3 N o . 2
David McElroy
In Your Child Soldier Dream
You belly past the goat corral and roosting chickens. You’re hungry until the pills kick in. Now you’re brave, braver than men. Your machete or rifle sling might catch in sorghum leaves and rustle the spotted dog awake, but you’re a vet. You take your time. You take care of the dog. If you’re caught and ditch the gun, you’re just a kid.
No moon, moving up wind in dirt, you do as you’re told, do as others do. You fan out. Two by two, hut to hut, you sneak up and wait on the edge of the sleepers’ dreams. Alert but quiet, nothing wild, you know the drill. You wait for the signal. You’re someone they count on. You’re not a difficult child.
Seat cushions get hard, snow squeaks under feet and wheels. High tech parkas crackle like shopping bags. Noon twilight, heavy on the blues, pretty much says it all. It pays to have a past you can use.
The hands you chop and tumble in a plastic sack bring you food in camp, good soldier, and praise. Manioc is warm and comfort on your tongue. You remember yams. Fried plantains are sweet, and relief rice fills. You remember meat. Back meat, thigh meat, even arm and heart, heat your dreams.
Your good money bringing the menu and a tanker out back with a 3 inch hose pumping a liter of house red. Art, language, agriculture. O the pizza, the pasta, the whole grilled fish, and your one and only strolling in with the gift of fire.
Sudden soccer is futbol. You kick the round cane thing the legless goalie throws back. You play, you laugh, you sleep. You scream in dreams you dream of. If school should come, marks on the board are beyond you. Ball is sometimes boy, and leaf is life. When rice is rock, dirt is dog dead in dirt.
Take an Orange in Case You Get Lost
Half throttle for break away power gets you rolling. Tires stiff and flat on the bottom thump for a hundred feet until they round out by the runway for the machines we use to move us along into our dark day’s work.
The ball of the world, for example, rolling under the sun, and the furniture of wind pushed into the corners, rivers running, and all the flyers plus swans coming in with the grace of snow to mate, nest, and feed.
Sandra Kleven