The Army Chemical Specialist

The Army Chemical Specialist

The cage wraps around like a dog kennel, only smaller
small enough that all you want to do is grab the chain links
and bend them outward so you can finally breathe,
and the incessant beeping of the ‘Pats’ machine
has nothing to do with anything but the task of keeping you
awake at this factory of misery, which is such a waste:
an exercise in being paid for squandering everyone’s time.
Will it be useful? They say soon, which means never.
News of a boy birthing his lungs through his mouth
or a girl (why are they always so young in these fantasies?)
rigid from that faint fruity smell, sickly pleasant enough
to make her mouth water before the breathing stops.
These are the dreams of feverish utility, of usefulness
that will get you wrapped in gold foil and chained
to the first general close enough to grab you
so that the death-by-power-point back in Missouri
now, as a delayed compensation, initiates your apotheosis.
But that’s always the moment the vision gives way
(why do these visions never reach the glorious victory parade?)
to the reality that the sick dream is enslavement propaganda.
The work in the cage will never amount to more
than the glory of paper shredding, of PMCSing, of Inspections,
of Inventories, and sizing the masks that work well to block
the sight of chlorine gas and airborne Ebola’s aftermath.
And, noble as it is, this pursuit will leave you wanting,
like a cat sitting in the cold, screaming to come in.
You’ll be trapped in the cage that’s folded over you
and they can’t let you out, (why do they always say that
from behind the chain links?) until you re-class like them,
and your integrity is gone, and they trap you
in the open air of freedom that smells so faintly sweet
that you salivate thickly just before you stop breathing.