Hey, enemy.  I swear.

Who gave you leave to go so absent,

just when I was starting to enjoy the ride?

I just noticed: it’s red and swollen around your ribcage

as if it contained a thing and the thing got wrenched.

A mess.  Your tented head, full of space.

We were cadets on either side of the trench.

We were having some action

and then you went missing in it.

So you missed all the action.

I’m acting out, acting it out so you won’t again. 

You wanted a war, and I’m the prisoner.

Take me.  This could go on for months

with blindfolds, metal cots, drops of water

and the Geneva convention over us in the cold.

Or you and I could get into spanking.

I mean, really get into it. Shock the world.

Get married in a civil ceremony. Lose ourselves.

Find our names later on some stone slab in Arlington.

You see, we have lots of options, amigo.

Amerigo.  Not just this one,

wherein once again you hold the gun

and I pull the pin from this fine drab hive.