Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

---Brian Turner

Brian Turner is a United States Army veteran, an infantry team leader in the Iraq War, deployed with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. In 1999 and 2000 he was with the 10th Mountain Division, deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Here, Bullet takes us into the truth and trauma of the Iraq war in language that is precise, delicate and beautiful, even as it tells of a skull shattered by a bullet, a blade in a blood groove. Turner was married to fellow poet Ilyse Kusnetz, who passed away in 2016.