Justin

CHRISTIAN WARD

The body is a festival of poppies

and smoke trying to cram back

into a 12 gun salute.

The body is Apocalypse Now

and Full Metal Jacket. The body is CNN

at Mogadishu, the BBC in Iraq and Fox

during Operation Desert Storm.

The body is Napoleon’s sword, Hitler’s luger

and Mussolini’s Beretta. The body is Vietnam’s

napalm birds and Saddam’s mustard clouds.

The body is the dried-up riverbed of chest

flesh and legs masquerading as art installations.

The body is wax lips, stitched-up cavities

and organs on the scales.

The body is a satellite zooming in, the sudden

press and a rush of flames. The body is tanks

making words fly off Twitter and Facebook

setting the world alight.

The body is a satellite zooming in, the sudden

press, a sideways glance. The body is rockets

making text fly into birds, a thousand likes

and right clicks. The body cannot rewind.

The body is Justin, 21 years old, KIA.

‘Justin’ was commended in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition, April 2012