Inside the betrodden bunkers, the boys lay.
It's a new day. 6 am sharp they awaken with anticipation.
They rise and they march and they bustle throughout camp.
Where their boots break with stressed step. blackened and soiled.
and their singing ceases with a stony look. They stand straight now.
This order they chose,
and this colony they feed.
For its buzz beckons more than a simple salute.
At a weeks end they bring Busch and burgers and sit under a blanket of stars,
and they tell stories of belly dancers and sandy beaches and starlit skies and those big, stifling water bugs in the defact, and they're all grinning because sal's got the hiccups bad. and oh,
how yesterday that man, that boy, with the pacemaker, took his last breath swimming in the brooke.
they laugh it off.
And Busch's bubbles go down smooth,
and they wrestle and they sing, and they call their girlfriends baby.
and their girlfriends call them silly.
and everyone rolls their eyes.
until that buzz fades
and that sun ascends
and their girlfriends say goodbye.
and so, for now,
their clothes lay stacked of the same order and style.
and their body language is a bit broken and bored and still,
and they stand in solemn line
after line
after line
after line
written in perspective of an army man's girlfriend.