Soldiers

I have heard the way they speak,
the internal churns of their logic
how they negotiate distance
and their questions at the gate

how bird call is boon or threat
their binary cuts

how they call direction
how they locate
the warnings and the friendships

their voices that have ambushed
localised gunfights

their location finding and their
aims to quick capture

the fleetness of shot
the solitude of snipers
the absent revenge of defusers
the glee of sappers

the flat ear of ordinance men
and the twitch of pilots

and my senses abide in acuity
and when they are proximate to
these bells I walk with the assurance of knowing the ghost
that I don't want to appear
until every soldier is dead on
the mesa of the theatre

or their hands behind their heads
as they are at rest and when they
have no recourse to arms

but their voice and their talk
scarper to the next webbing and they, I believe, carry cold as strap to their side until their numbers
are sealed and their families are solaced by
their discharge and to what defence they offered
to greater names we ought never
have acquiesced respect to.