I’m welling like a tick,

A bloody spurt of our military past together,

Fathers with daughters,

And the mythology of you and I,

This is how we become.

Here is the summer light in spots,

Gold through tall Virginia trees,

And I am laying splinter covered,

A tender sliver of child,

Dreaming in the hot sinking sun afternoon.

Men in khaki shirts,

The heat rising from their bodies

Like so much ferment,

Sludge, or something rotten and left in the sun too long

Barely contained and smelling of cum and piss.

Dogs spinning kicking the mowed grass,

Worn planks as my naptime cot,

Away from situations of disconnect,

I loll day-dreaming,

Sleepy in the cool of later.