POEM FROM A SOLDIER IN AFGHANISTAN

At night, perched in the Pamirs
high above the Pech
the air thins cold
and vision is possible:
you seek the slash
of poppy orange in grey rock,
yellow gleams from copses
of holly and cedar,
the silver of wire lining
the goatherd’s path.

The thin cold air
magnifies night-sound:
the snap of twigs, the soft
snap after the bullet
slashes air, the snap
and slap of gear
buttoned on and down,
magazines loaded,
soft violences masked
by mortar thrum.

In the cold night air
dark stretches and thins:
tracers limn clouds, yellow
dust balloons behind ridges
illuming villages
on fire, rockets explode
and reflect in the Pech
red and black streamers,
some reverse fireworks,
some strange awesome
terrible celebration.



***
Prompt: use these words in a poem: slash, button, mask, strap, balloon

I have war on the brain: I am reading it, writing it, all to make setting (hopefully) believable. This is where the prompt took me. Peace...