Grazing my temple

"Well, I lived with a child of snow

When I was a soldier

And I fought every man for her

Until the nights grew colder."

(Leonard Cohen)

when i was a soldier a bullet grazed my temple, thrown from across the river by a boy who pointed his weapon without thought of consequences, knocked me down but did not kill me, grappled with my brother who threw him into the water and broke his staff, later in the day when i awoke my grandmother's face was above me offering comfort, it was the first time but not the last, for a few year's later i would be knocked down again, unconcious again, and again she would be there when i awoke, and this time i would think she was an angel and that i had died and gone to heaven, and i would ask her if this was what had happened, and she would chuckle, yes chuckle is the word that best describes the sound she made when she laughed, so soft, round and inward, jolly, deep-seated, slightly grevious, like a sigh of resignation, and then again i would go back to war, this time without a horse, wheezing in the open field my chest torn open by my addiction, my shame of how my leg would swing out when i ran blistering the palms of my hands, the laughter of the farm girls, my attempt to writhe in the ashes of poetry, the smell of pig farms and model airplane cement, the cigarettes i stole from my father, the girl down the street who danced for us in the tree house, my naive clumsy attempts at sex, i was a soldier in the army of resistance to war, a black armband on my jean jacket, the american flag sewn upside down onto the pocket, my father's rage balanced precariously on my shoulder as i walked the hallways of school, exhausted and nervous, skinny and weaponless, trailing clouds of glory with sunsheen and miraculous freezing, and again a stone, a strike at my head, nearly tearing off my ear, alone by the creek now with my younger brother, standing behind me where the weapon recently left his hand, untying my love for him and laying it by the stream, deerhide with blood, service berries staining my fingers, red cliffs rising to the east, you were there and you are with me now.