Blanks

I said I would end this with a straight face,
kept a cohort of soldiers shooting, even at night,
punctured balloons that took my heart too high
into my mouth, never agreed to let defenses down

until, at the end, at such a height, it seemed clear
they had shot blanks. I looked at them scattered
across the chest’s scuffed floor like a splintered stick
finally struck against something a little too big.
Judging by how it pumps and throbs,
the effect of the blow on the heart was not so great.

Once I dared to tell you we were like a pair of roses
clutched together by our sharp green teeth
without the redemptive blazing and bumping
together of passionate red bundles above the waist;
soldiers have tendancy to exaggerate with a stoic face.
Of course, you can clearly see the holes in the breast plate,
new blooms pushing out with each pulse.

All afternoon, I’ve watched the ocean, another vast,
tumultuous beast. Shoot an arrow in, and it will sink
without a trace. It goes on forever making that sound
of from right before or after the record plays.
We rise up, a swell of sound, a rushing wall,
a great sympthony, perhaps for a year or a few days,
before we slam into the ordinary buildings of our former lives.

The soldiers take a week to gather, tin cups in hand,
and scoop the town clean. In a month, they ready the streets
for the next great parade, and by spring, they replant
the flower beds. Yet, even the rooms, perfectly preserved,
preemptively boarded up and stacked with bags of sand,
feel empty, do not feel the same, and the replanted carnations
look, on certain nights, like brutal wounds waving
at the beach without a single tooth.