Point of No Return
It is dawn, traffic is light but the air, musky with rain.
Thick moisture, thicker sky enraged.
Dark night, darker minds stain.
85 remarkably quiet, dark sky pours sharks and stingrays.
Jet black s40 indeed very sporty,
built not to cross heavy water ways.
****
Yet lone Soldier must tread menacing floods,
post far in horizon.
Although very early, already ghastly morning to have.
All signs point to stay home but duty calls.
Driving from home to Benning,
unusual tedious two-hour drive.
Soldier was resolved,
in less than two that daybreak.
Who would think that way one might query?
Someone traversing a bad journey.
All on the line mindset, no lateness to take.
****
Nights before barely slept, laid half-awake in rocking chair.
Suffered with insomnia since her return from the Middle East.
Now sore in the neck, back shooting pain,
eyes shifting every which where.
Brave whimsical Soldier,
Benning before Reveille unforgettably echoes.
****
Flooded, grizzly gloom, empty roads -
Beaut courses through glum, submerged interstate.
Rain drops on thin windshield like bullets,
from a not so distant war.
Her PTSD kicks in,
as she strives to dodge each one from Thor.
****
Panic seeps under her skin,
like a rancid rash from George Romero’s Zombies.
G.I. girl computes in her head,
combat boot on gas pedal, she accelerates.
“It is almost 5:30,” G.I. Rome whispered to herself,
“If not by Grady before 5:45, will never make it.”
Ah these gravely famous last words, such spit...
****
Skidding, veering, struggling to keep the reins.
Tiny car spins, light blurring by,
wheel whipping from beneath her shaking hands.
S40 middle finger lifted sharply,
braces herself for life’s worst.
While loved but lonesome deluged V-beaut,
rolls over multiple times into brash wood line.
Alas finally stopped by thick eerie tree troll.
****
There suspended upside down,
blood splattered impression ev’where.
Little Soldier reached her final destination.
5:45, Grady morgue or Benning?
