Once a Boy

Once a boy, always a boy.

A lapdog hung by string roots
shot by barbed wire
stretching; an unequivocal menace
in the killing fields. Fields that
boast of legacies that sneak
young boys with shrapnel,
it coaxes with chocolate-covered piety
and offers it to the Legacy of America.
(Once a boy, always a boy.)

Twice wounded, thrice glittered
by a (machine gun) that sparkled
sanguine stars on some mangled thing
of a body; enamored by the
sweet shrill of the rifles
humming some new upbeat single.

The boys wound round—wind-up dolls
in a frisky unorthodox tango,
as if on a showcase being judged by
Big Brother, on a scale from one to ten,
despite letters addressing their
lonely gals back at home,
unsure of which direction their
feet are forced to run;
courage strength be-a-hero,
America!
is their surrogate lover,
that is, if not already flirting with the
smokin’ mine bombs,
sizzlin’ blood on a half-faced man,
steamin’ missiles defecated by planes,
rumor has it.