D E T O N A T E
by Jade Visos-Ely

Runestone, volume 4

These bullet          shells at my feet.

The shell-shock

smile twisted like a gear

you shouldn’t have turned.

Scrape the film like pond scum.

See all the wounds

left by airplanes.     

Suture

the flimsy dream clouds          to my sharp angles.

A crude

meshing like trying to put up a fence

against your atomic need           to blast

everything to perfection.

 Replay the splintered

moment of the first bullet         breaching the breastgate.

 Puncture of the flutter

and beat, an unexpected                    burst

like gorged poppies.     

Copper and sawdust

 stuck in the throat.

Shrapnel

scattered like milk pods.

The cannon fodder

of too many hopefuls

and is the war over?

I’m tired of all these rations,          starved

for the rich cream,

something solid

and whole.