Found poem | J.D. Olenslager

Sandbox

I don’t know
if you played in the sandbox
or uncovered any green
army men buried there
by your older brother--
heads partially blown off,
stiff green legs pocked and twisted
by the silver lead of a Daisy
b.b. gun and firecrackers
that had been planted in sand.

Years later I watched him
parade across the asphalt at Camp Pendleton
in his drab, green uniform and salute
officers with the other young Marines.
My mother said he had changed,
but I knew about all the black-cat
explosions and guns in the sandbox.
It was me who found the graveyard
of plastic men he had massacred
in our backyard.