R. Joseph Rodríguez
IED: A simple bomb made and used by unofficial or unauthorized forces.
Origin
1970s: short for improvised explosive device.
--Oxford English Dictionary (2019)
Always a game at the beginning.
To groom me. No choices
on the battleground for play.
Indian I am assigned, though
vaquero I’d prefer. He charges,
guns down, then leaves casually.
I surrender boy self and stance.
Hollywood’s his 70s primer,
an essential element.
He tastes false victories.
Soon other words name me,
hurled like sharpened machetes,
or shrapnel from IEDs.
I know us no more.
Bad guys from screens
and wars he imitates.
He becomes them,
officiates with authority.
I ask him my name,
to now call me by all
my chosen names,
some christened,
as he wears down
spilling with ideations
after service and war,
in locked solitude,
in the shoe.
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