Issue 16, March 1998
Krist Bronstad - Two Poems

My friend the ex-sniper
with a fake knee
has gotten used to sleeping with the light on
crawling through sleep like an infant through a burning house.
How unsettling 
to wake and find your watery reflection
on the inside of a sliding door
in a retiree's house
near the canadian border—
your colorless mouth gaping, slanted to one side
your hair a mess of muddy brown leaves.
And to tell us nothing
to collect your nightmares silently
like soldiers
lay them end to end
in the footlocker beside your
childhood bed.

My friend the ex-sniper
with the fake knee
stocking batman toys from a
fifteen foot ladder
under flickering flourescent lights
eating lunches of canned soups alone
in the employee room
watching his co-workers
with finely cross-hatched vision
imagining them each seperately
with mortal wounds
their innocent guts splattered
across the row of lockers where
pictures of fiancees wait to be adored
and civilian shoes wait to be worn
out into the cold Michigan day

My friend the ex-sniper 
with the fake knee
once a lavish hotel room scenery eater
once a boy who was nothing but a boy,
in a smoking jacket, in bare feet,
in thin underwear, hanging his
jeans from the chandelier
tracing trip-heavy fingers across
velvet-pasted paisley wallpaper.
And a good shot too
and not a half bad liar
and it took what? 
365 times 24 hours
to turn him into a camoflauge flesh monkey
shooting hot metal pulp from 
gum trees. 

My friend the ex-sniper
with the fake knee
an imposing Northern shadow
self-styled, hulking gimp
tossing words at
girls in pancake make-up
up  near the Canadian border--
man in the mackinaw vest - yeah, that's him
blunt features in the sunlight in the camera
in the swamps so early in the morning,
his boots so clean, so carpet-soled.

an hour a public place
this a filthy world
stamped and dragged along
the heel of a tattoed orderly's shoe
an hour a public place
but may we just walk alone
in the woods 
I will not do
Those horrid things you expect me to
an hour a public place
and then never to see you again.
	
this a complex world
snapped like pipes in winter times
"and what would you think of free El Paso?
Where do you go?
If not South then what 
Is north?"
I go to the mountains, 
Aching young hands move
White rocks built 
To spell 
our collective name
Catholics make pilgrimages with
Candles and sweet words
I have never felt the warmth
Of their love.
No I've never heard of Senor Miguel's
There are girls there who
Would tear their painted fingers
Into your chest
And fuck you to death in the back lot
And for miles the cheap tin fences
Would sing with your screams
Or I have heard of it, but never
ventured out that way.
The river bed is dried up and
Smells of the sewer underneath
But I've never ventured out that way

An hour a public place
where will we go 
These things they say of me
I will assure you
None of it is true;
None of it is to be taken
In a literal sense;
oh I am not interested in love anyway.
for the most part.
For now.
An hour a public place
They've limited my interaction to
Rooms and hours designated for
Socialization by discount crepe paper
Sprite in Dixie cups
Cheesy music from Goodwill speakers,
I fake conversation 
With familiar bodies whose faces 
Reflect nothing,
Women who have been through everything
And learned absolutely nothing from it

This is a crap world
Dribbling from the lips
Of a lost shit-stinking
Avalanche of a woman
This a horrible horrible world
and do you even know yet
These things that roll in my head
Like marbles on a tilting platter
but where will we go
an hour a public place
and then never to see you again.