In Battle

In battle, you
catch a breath in a cloud of dust
you run toward fear
you find a bullet in a basket
and then you come home
and watch movies and
read books
and pretend you understand what it was all about.

to hold a life in your fingers–
it feels like
cotton candy, like a wisp of cloud,
it feels like something weak for the wind, stolen by a breeze.
their lives were their own, and I stole them,
I bagged them up, I counted them.

I gave Prometheus back his fire.