Boy Soldier and the Night
- Boy Soldier and the Night
The night, innocent and darklike the soldier pointing a gunto his head and begging for death.
The night before was thickwith gunshots as music tryingto cover the smell of sex.Him driving into the nightseeking the solace of a girl's lapin a dark room, his bodybrimming war and saltwater.
The night is a gun drowningbetween his thighs, earthcreaking beneath his boots.He is fifteen with a belly fullof loss and sharp eyesand short legs and the warpeeling off him like the skinof an onion.
The night is dark with a lossof blue and walls red like the facesof men he shot and the night,innocent and quiet like the eyesof a girl in the cornfield. [End Page 175]
Wale Owoade is the founder and managing editor of EXPOUND. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in African American Review, Transition, Guernica, The Brooklyn Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Pine Hills Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, and several others. Some of his poems have been translated into Bengali, German, and Spanish. He will be attending the 2017 Callaloo Workshop at Oxford, UK in July, 2017.
