I remember the competition
over fishing holes in Georgia,
Illinois, Northeast Montana,
and how we traded barbs
with shots of Old Granddad
in that dusty French museum of an HQ,
so noble in our plans,
bequeathing hot dogs and paper
napkins on the conquered,
thinking some day we may take on
those rows of gold-dipped books.
We'd been polished like brass
for weeks by squadron leaders,
feted as the victors; they never
had to ask for our permission.
We volunteered
for any mission.
We argued over maps
but shared our chewing gum.
We thought how bad it was
our desert target was infested
with all those poison-armed arachnids.
We guarded each perquisite
of our respective roles
—pilot, gunner, navigator—
like the detail for an emperor.
Our precision was our silence,
for there always comes a time
when the arguing must end.
I remember all of that
as if it happened yesterday,
the smell of sulphur triggers,
the sound of raining sand,
but the thought that there were people
below our cookie bomb
has never once occured
in all these years.
