Under Water © 1996 Doris Flueck

 
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Boots VIII
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The small boy was lying in a pile of corpses.
Skin peeled away like the flesh of a potato.
Bombs set just over the next hill, a sunset in the wrong direction.
Boots kicked the boy.
You will get a brief five minutes in a Time Life home video for this.
If your child is born with no arms or legs, will it seem unfair?
Someday, reporters will ask you what you did during the war.
"Let's play a game," Boots said to the boy.
The child's arms were around the waist of his mother.
The boy's eyes opened as if in shock.
The child's arms were around the waist of his mother.
Someday, this will all be washed away in Prozac numbness, in the peace of a
military nursing home.
In war, certain people become shining stars.
"You are not really dead."
No blood poured from the black holes in the boy's body.
The sharp metal of the razors sliced thin through the boy's face.
The white of the little boy's eyes stared straight at Boots.

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Holly Day
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Copyright © Holly Day
May 1997

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