I bend my neck back. Sixty

       percent Afghan whisky

now in my blood, I’m sure

there’s a door somewhere

in the sky I can slip through.

       Down here, on earth

in his nan’s old deck chairs

       their floral padding and rust

it’s tender silence, until

         he says the most beautiful

stars he’s ever seen were over

         Helmand Province. This same sky

these same stars, pulled

          over an ant hill

in the desert where beauty

          was never expected. I think of

him all fatigues and testosterone

           wonder if he told another man to look

up or kept them all to himself.

            He closes his eyes

the taught cord of him now slack

             he unfurls from man to boy.

Someone has cowered at the sight of him.

         Under the stars, burning

on a salt night in April, he lifts an earwig

         out of the fire, his shovel

hand and a twig. He places

         its body on a tall blade of grass

and asks me to cut the onions

         for dinner. For a moment, he looks

like a person who could choose

        his own clothes for a change.

The oven clock flashes 12.00, 12.00

         12.00. I beg for its dumb repetition

to live, suspended with this gentle

          man a while longer

before his knots begin to tighten

          all over again.