Cache

In that house, farm like,
with a goat and a small,
furrowed plot, we wandered,

kicked at wood slats, and talked
about bombs. We were crazy
about bombs back then.

The goat stared, ducked its head.
It had seen it all before. Men,
uniforms, Jonah pouting.

It had something to do with
nakedness. It made him sad.
It made us sad, melancholy.

He ate grass. We radioed higher,
listened to the static. The sun
set above the distant city,

slowly, ivy blooms
shaped like trumpets
on a strangled rose bush.

Michael Carson deployed to Mosul in 2006 with the U.S. Army and now teaches community college in Baytown, Texas. His recent poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming at The Hudson Review, Boulevard, The Threepenny Review, The New England Review, and elsewhere.