As always the end begins
with a social media post
by the president of the United States
about the size of our nation’s nuclear button
compared to a foreign
dictator’s. As always
a word grows into a code grows
into a command grows into the nation’s promise
all at once fulfilled. As always
my son enlists
on his 18th birthday and I hate
the airwaves for making him. Beneath the quilt
of crossing missiles
is the lunatic language
that pressed us to regret
and beneath the language is my son. Again, my son
bursts into a cloud
of earth and fire and metal
during the middle-east invasion
or bleeds out from friendly fire at the French border
or turned with everything else
to smithereens when the silos
emptied, an exodus
of 10,000 bombs in search of their own
artificial god. Again, my son
bunkers down in Germany
and survives a month before starving
or survives a week until radiation
dries his lungs slaughtered
purple. I’m not sure
how it happens,
but, again and again, it happens.
