Personal Effects by Solmaz Sharif

You’re posing. You’re scared.
A body falls
a loosened head. You begin to appreciate
the heft of your boot soles,
how they propel you,

how they can kick in
a face–
the collapse

of a canopy bed
in an aerial bombardment,
mosquito netting doused

in napalm–cheekbones fragile
as moth wings beneath the heel.
You tighten your laces

until they hold together
a capable man.
Whatever rains,

the weight of your feet
swings you forward,
goose-stepping pendulums

a body less and less yours–
a body, God knows,
is not what makes you

anyway. So the hands
that said they never would
begin finding

grenade pins around their fingers,
begin flipping through this album
with soot under their nails