It was normal, usual, expected...
The rockets came, whistling shrilly
Or silently gliding to impact.
It happened a hundred times already.
Normal , usual, expected.

Except...
This time as he lay in a ditch,
The rockets growled their way in
And exploded close enough to
Toss him about as if on a trampoline,
And he worried that he might be hit
By shrapnel during those moments
When he was not hugging the earth closely.

Whack !
A piece of shrapnel slammed into his back.
It stunned him but there was no pain.
He realized that it had fallen onto him
More than had been propelled into him
And that his smoking flak vest had saved him.
He was relieved, thinking, 'What are the
Odds of me being hit again ?'

Then the mortars began raining down.

Whack ! Whack !
Another hit and yet another - and again no pain -
He could feel the weight of metal on his back.
And he thought it would make a great souvenier.
He reached around to see if it was hot,
It was already stone cold.

Whack ! Whack ! Whack !
Cold shrapnel fell over and around him.
There was no pain - only weight.
Cold shrapnel fell on him, near him,
And skipped toward him in his ditch.
And the weight of it became suffocating.

Whack ! Whack ! Whack ! Whack ! Whack !
It was being propelled into him now
And still dropped onto him as rain,
Though the explosions weren't so loud
And seemed to be farther away...
The shrapnel was slamming in harder.
But a thick layer of cold shrapnel
Had already begun to cover his body,
The collected metal formed a coat of armor
Protecting him from further harm.

Whack ! Thump ! Whack ! Thump ! Whack !
Thump ! Thump ! Thump ! Thump ! Thump !
The weight of shrapnel was very great...
It began to press him into the ground.
And as the ground receded before him,
He began to understand the coldness
Of the shrapnel. It should have been hot.
He should have been burned.

Thump !
A few feet lower into the earth and,
like its heat,
The cold shrapnel lost even its weight,
And he was home.

Copyright 1995 Louis J. Rose All Rights Reserved.