Practice

It's been awhile. For Three Word Wednesday. Prompt words Demand, Navigate, Crinkle.

Practice

There they are again.
Faint thuds, incessant,
demanding attention
like an unlatched
barn door banging
in the winter wind.
Perhaps that’s all it is:
a door ajar;
or a pile-drive
pounding columns
for the overpass
that will (we are promised)
help us navigate
the snarling traffic;
or the boy two streets down,
imagining a game
on the line, dribbling slowly
as he readies for the
final shot.

But I deceive myself.
I know if I travel
forty miles southwest,
past the spoiled Ogeechee
and tangled pines,
I’ll see
mangled earth,
I’ll feel
air crinkle
with concussive
power. Ft. Stewart trains
for death. Soon
they’ll set their sights
on flesh, on foreign
barns and bridges,
just as hopeful as
my neighbor kid that
practice pays off.