Indirect Fire

By Andy Havens

Richard Hugo said The war was bad. Well.
I wouldn’t know but to hear it said.
A shotglass of cast-off words fired idly
on the cough that clears a head. Something spare
and crass — spent brass gone cold and hollow
as a shell that’s left its ocean behind.

A half-drunk slump, shell to ear and that’s
not breaking waves he hears. That’s not the tide.
It’s the silent surge of insistent swells –
the moon, the tomb, the muteness at his heels.
This sea’s history deep - one man wide. It
comes in, waves, never retreats. He fits inside.

To hear it said like that, the war was bad,
to hear it said accuses. A judgment
limping along on the prosthetic banality
of finality. A well-meant missive
less form-fitted than a carbon fiber limb.
Much harder, when it itches, to forgive.

A one-armed man can never plug both ears.
Can only stave off waves with half the hands
he needs for prayer. Does he stay to raise
the drink or climb inside the shell? You say
the war was bad. Well. When his drink’s done
he’ll half-clap, and ask, sarcastically – which one.

****

Andy Havens is a father, husband, and writer living in Seattle. His work has appeared in Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Fragments, and The Poet's Billow.