Soldier

Having felt and forgotten the wind during the time for wind

and having burned in the sun to the color and heat of the sun,

he can speak with candor of earth, of edible and poisonous fruits

and of things that remain in the sun and accept night without

shelter.

But during the hours the wind didn't blow

and no one moved who didn't have to move

he saw himself and said, I am empty. I am invalid.

I represent no known abstraction

with which to whip the squalid disasters to vanity.

And my eyes turn to a place where home is defined

as sitting at ease at your favorite bar

while verbal doubts and basic reservations are set up

and shattered like empty bottles at a shooting gallery,

where love will be performed with pin-ups and mannequins

in lighted store windows, on Times Square at noon.