~~~ The blast from an improvised explosive device moves at 13,000 mph, gets as hot as 7,000 degrees and creates 400 tons of pressure per square inch. “No one survives that. We’re trying to save the kids at 25 meters and beyond.” – Ronald Glasser in the Army Times If this poem had wires coming out of it, you would not read it. If the words in this poem were made of metal, if you could see the mechanics of their curvature, you would hope they would stay covered by whatever paper rested in the trash pile they were hidden in. But words or wires would lead you still to fields of grass between white buildings. If this poem were made of metal and you read it, if you did decide to read or hear the words, you would see wires where there were none, you would pick up the slack of words, you would reel them in, pull loose lines until you stood in that dry field, where you’d sweat. You would wonder how you looked from rooftop level, if you had been targeted. If these words were buried beneath debris, you would ask specific questions, like, am I in a field of words? What will happen if they are unearthed? Is the entire goddamn country full of them? Prefer that they be words, not wires, not made of metal, which is almost always trouble. If these words should lead you to the rough center of a field, you’ll stand half-blind from the bright light off white buildings, still holding the slack line in your hand, wondering if you have been chosen. You’ll realize that you both have been and not, and that an accident is as much of a choice as saying, “I am going to read this poem.” If this poem had wires coming out of it, you would call the words devices, if you found them threatening in any way, for ease of communication and because you would marvel at this new, broad category. This is another way of saying we’d rely on jargon to understand each other, like calling a year a tour, even though there are never any women in bustled dresses carrying umbrellas to protect complexions. In moments you might think these words were grand, in an odd way, never imagining you would find a need to come back to them, or that you’d find days that you were desperate for the potential of metal, wires, and hidden things. And if this poem was somehow traveling with you in the turret of a Humvee, you would not see the words buried at the edges of the road. You would not see the wires. You would not see the metal. You would not see the danger in the architecture of a highway overpass. If this poem has left you deaf, if the words in it are smoking, if parts of it have passed through your body or the bodies of those you love, this will go a long way toward explaining why you will, in later years, prefer to sleep on couches. If these words have caused casualties, then this poem will understand that, oftentimes, to be in bed is to be one too many layers away from wakefulness. If this poem was made of words the sergeant said – after, like, don’t worry boys, it’s war, it happens – as the cab filled up with opaque smoke and laughter, then it would be natural for you to think of rote – rauta, the old Norse called it, the old drumbeat of break of wave on shore – as an analogue for the silence that has filled your ears again and particles of light funneled through the holes made by metal meeting metal meeting muscle meeting bone. You would not see. You would not hear. You would not be blamed for losing focus for a second: this poem does not come with an instruction manual. These words do not tell you how to handle them. You would not be blamed for what they’d do if they were metal, or for after taking aim at a man holding a telephone in his hand in an alley. You would not be blamed for thinking words could have commanded it. If this poem had fragments of metal coming out of it, if these words were your best friend’s legs, dangling, you might not care or even wonder whether or not it was only the man’s mother on the other end of the telephone line. For one thing, it would be exonerating. Secondly, emasculating (in the metaphorical sense of male powerlessness, notwithstanding the likelihood that the mess the metal made of your friend’s legs and trousers has left more than that detached). If this poem had wires for words, you would want someone to pay. If this poem had wires coming out of it, you wouldn’t read it. If these words were made of metal they could kill us all. But these are only words. Go on, they are safe to fold and put into your pocket. Even better, they are safe to be forgotten. ~~~