A Soldier's Salvation

 esse’s combat boots

stand at attention
beneath the bunk’s mattress
perched on broken wire.
Over paper-thin soles leather
long scraped of shineable surface dries,
still stained with the day’s encounter
with Georgia mud
except where the hole lets an old broken toe breathe.
The sharp clap of a slamming door
drives Jesse to the floor.
He shakes his head at the power of fears
half a century old,
straightens the boots,
and kneels,
praying to his sponsor’s higher power
that this army lives up to its name.