balls of your feet

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balls of your feet
by Peter Layton

you had to ladle the, sandwiches
because they were wet as soup
but that's how it was in the war
it tasted like Waldorph's
even though it was the monsoon rainy season
rain falling up
dripping on the undersides of trucks, the tanks,
and some things'd get so wet they
wouldn't go
funny you sweat so much under these conditions
the boys playing football in mud,
you can run and dive and catch it
just the same as twenty miles north
in what looked like a rain forest but
stayed your enemy
in the middle of sentences or
walking into a blind
your leg is gone
or you
sometimes it'd look quickly as if a joke had
thrown an opened can of red paint at you
paint for scooters
a medic is shouting at your friend
not to shout
some hands and knees 'd shove you up
say here, eat this
all you could think about is it
a sandwich wet as a spoon
or somebody you once remembered
no different from handfuls of sand
scooped out, of the dark