Toilet paper rolls
were strewn around the jackknifed trailer,

Humvees dust trailed past the smoke veiled
engine cab, their turrets popcorned
the van that bowled grenades at their bee line.

The driver crumpled, rutting sand with his elbows,
while the captain kept ordering him to holster
his pistol. He thought the metal cooled his hand

and they swarmed him,
because he chattered like a man who might
not let himself spend

the next minute with half a leg;
kilometers later they released him to triage
and another unit returned

to list the wreck. Another driver lopes
that route now, hemmed in yellow lines,
forbidden to carry a sidearm.