Don’t drop your gaze

Keep one on the hilt and one on the barrel

towards your Northern enemy

Don’t think about the books
You dropped at Dixie’s call
Keep your stance firm
March when they call for you

With your cowboy hat
With your bronze coat
With your hollow eyes and straight lips
You have forged your own battlefield

You have left your bite in a locked box
You have buried it somewhere blameless away
belt loop still holding
The shined bayonet and powdered dogma
Half of you even the freshmen

Don’t study on the steps with eyes down
Don’t call yourself a civilian

Consider her dread at his wordless remark
He the centurion estranged from wisdom
Conscripted to timely judgement

After washing rebuilding our beloved street
filth drips into his thirsty roots
He drinks and fills his C.S.A canteen
Comfortably present

Don’t think you’ve turned invisible
Don’t crease your precious eyes
She is coming to uproot

You will protest
Crumbling into unfounded exaltation
For she is the change
And we are with her