some daily language

The sheer violence, red, bang and ringing.

Inside, our guntruck cab inhales in a gasp
the darkness and chokes on dust.

The things I do not feel: hard interior edges
against my tail bone
and my thumb and my elbow and my shin.The small scrapes later,
the small dark bruises on my shin and knee later,
the stiff soreness of my back
for the next days later describe
everything to me: perhaps the metal anchoring or the small notched nobs
of our radio, with its glowing consul, perhaps the corners
of the custom wooden platform
some gunner before me built himself
to stand on
to see higher
outside the top truck turret, perhaps
the painted green metal latch-closed boxes
we keep our ammunition in. We were turned upside down with these
questions about such specific information.

The things we did not see: the frozen moments of glass splintering out
with the impact of shrapnel, the armored driver's door littered
and punched through by holes, some as big as our fists, the dirt and gravel exploding up and over us like a blanket thrown
to tuck us under for sleep.

The fields on both sides of this road are dark and quiet.
The voices on the receiver suddenly shout fast and confused.

We do not understand a single day afterwards.
We finally understand every day before
was also exactly that way.
Nothing has changed,

except the ringing of a violence. We hear it now.