aerial combat

red hayseed
tumbled in mercury of Argentina,
you imagine
that I didn't recognize
his shaved lab rat sun
aping the motions
of a diviner surface
than the sunrise.

all he wore
was leather
when he jabbed that crux
into his decaying forearm
like anybody
who was a man
and hadn't reconciled
that pain of humanity
as removed
from suffering,
which is an impossible trap
when even flowers
remind one of rape.

I drank a beer
then had another afterwords
afterwards
and figured nothing
but a cliff's outrage
during the Battle of Britain
when the Hurricanes
survived armor piercing rounds
and came back home
to find a ruined and smoking factory
lit up by tracer phosporesence. 

Why didn't you tell the others with their radios
that they would have a small knife
between their shoulder blades
that couldn't be pulled out?

Well its because
we call that grief.