Military Clothes

The river runs swollen with the spring rains.

How will you pay for it?

In your tinfoil armor,

coming up singing as you were born again.

Washed in muddy water,

will you recover from the stain

when they call you by that unfamiliar name?

In the flat land of west Texas,

telephone poles and the evening train.

I saw you at the station,

waiting for the slow release again.

Washed my hands of diesel,

but it burns my eyes like smoke to see you standing in

your military clothes.