The Only Dead Soldier I Know

The only dead soldier I know
didn’t die in the war:
he rode his motorcycle

up from Miami to Sarasota to meet up
with some fellow soldiers, one with
a pickup truck to carry his bike, en route

to South Carolina where they were all
stationed.  They convened at a Chili’s,
ordered beers to get drunk and celebrate

the end of their leave before deployment,
but after a few drinks he began
to feel the fatigue of the long drive up

and told his pals he was going to go
sleep in the bed of the truck, to wake
him when they were ready to go.  Only

he climbed into the wrong truck,
fell asleep on the warm plastic lining,
too drunk and tired to notice

his bike wasn’t there, just as
the truck owners must have been
too drunk or tired to notice

a stranger curled up like a rescued kitten
snoring lightly in the back and drove off
into that moonless night.  My friend

must have thought he was deployed
in his sleep as a paratrooper, waking
to roaring wind and black sky, thinking

he wasn’t trained for this, mistaking
the screaming highway traffic
for the drone of a plane engine, confused

and hungover, but didn’t bother to check
for a parachute, didn’t question the situation
or the high-beams of the trailing car

as he stood up, took hold of the tailgate
for balance, crossed himself once
and stepped into the light.

Ariel Francisco is currently an MFA candidate at Florida International University in Miami. His poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Jai-Alai Magazine, Tupelo Quarterly, Washington Square, and elsewhere.