KM4
6 The Coming
At KM4 a wall of leaves spits green into the air
and hangs there beautiful and repulsive.
Between the leaves, in the interstices where birds
don’t stir in sun and heat, the smell of raw camel meat
wakes you to the vision of what keeps going on in the wound—
the wound inside your head that you more or less shut out
as you go round and round the roundabout
at KM4 where your friends the soldiers in the CASSPIR
are all pretending to be dead.
The TV Ken doll anchor keeps complaining to their corpses,
Hey, can’t you get my flak jacket adjusted
so it doesn’t crush my collar?
Leaves softly undulating, little waves of leaves undergoing shifts
between astral blue and green, leaves always breaking on leaves
in the little breeze that the CASSPIR passing stirs in the heat—
stirring the memory of putting your fingers
in the wounds of a blast wall at KM4 as if you were
doubting Thomas waiting for Christ to appear:
thumb-sized holes for AK-47s,
fist-sized for twenty caliber, both fists for fifty.
Contributor’s notes: Tom Sleigh
Contributor’s notes: Michael Hafftka
KM4 Introduction: Poem & Paintings
Artist’s Statement: Michael Hafftka
KM4