Poor Poor Boy

Poor, poor, boy (212).
He was just a kid at war, in love. (12)
crawling out of the tunnel, grinning, filthy but alive, laughing (12)
hoping, unwrapping the letters, holding them with the tips of his fingers, spending the last hour of light pretending, imagining romantic camping trips, tasting the envelope flaps. (1)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
carried his girlfriend’s pantyhose around his neck like a comforter. (28)
slept with the stockings up against his face, the way an infant sleeps with a flannel
blanket, secure, and peaceful.(118).
nineteen or twenty
clucked his tongue (31)
your basic fun-lover (211)
splashing (119)
playing checkers every evening before dark. (32)
whooping and leaping around barefoot(36)
singing, “A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket.” (37)
teaching a rain dance (36)
He did funny jumps and spins. (136)
His wrists were the wrists of a child. (124)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
He had comic books (28)
He made up a rhyme that caught on, and we’d all be chanting it together.(33)
smiling (28)
He liked to roam around asking questions. (95)
Trick or treating on Halloween (239)
flipping his yo-yo, dancing it with short, tight little strokes of the wrist. (72)
buddies (217)
brothers (194)
Giggling and calling each other yellow mother and playing a silly game they’d invented.
there was a childlike exuberance to it all, lots of pranks and horseplay. (37)
Whoever chickened out was a yellow mother… they’d laugh and dance around and then do it again (70).

Poor, poor, boy (212).
Meat for the bugs. (223)
will most definitely learn (97)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
sat in the bow of the boat and cried (159)
“Lost” he kept whispering (105)
The boy seemed frantic. The young boy was trying hard not to cry. (171).


Poor, poor, boy (212).
Whimpered and waited (211)
coiled up, tightened his muscles and listened, knuckles hard, the pulse ticking in his head. (205)
thought about dark closets, madmen, murderers, trolls, and giants, all those childhood fears, blinked and shook his head. (205)
uncurl your fists and let your thoughts go. (34)

You hear the spooks laughing. No shit, laughing. (205)
Creepy (209)
He’d get jumpy (220)
He said, “I mean, Christ, I’m just a boy.” (37)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
Gonna alter your whole perspective. (231)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
Little kid without arms or legs (58)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
No way out. (205)
All you could do was scream. (214)
Hugging yourself, rocking (216)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
all young and innocent, but learned pretty damn quick (97)
The bubbliness was gone. The nervous giggling too. (99)
The body seemed foreign somehow-too stiff in places.(99)
Eyes were utterly flat and indifferent. (110)
He kicked the baby buffalo. (79)
He hit him hard. And he didn’t stop. (62)
Was Dangerous. Ready for the Kill. (116)
One more animal-end of story. (107)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
Wasn’t even the same person no more (107).
Sank down into the sewage. In deep shit (156).
A lost ball. (167)
A lost sensation. (221)

Poor, poor, boy (212).
How crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive could get so incredibly dead. (223)
Burn away to nothing (111).
Simply vanish altogether (115).

The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow. (236)
Simply vanish altogether (115).