The Recruit Abdulbaseet Yusuff A boy has come to sign up for the military at a local café. Barely twenty, by the brief bulge of his biceps.
I scan his eyes for reasons: Is it the starched khaki, the shillings, the music of shellings,
or the old fervor of patriotism. Most likely the first three, but I hate to rule out the latter.
The form says, the military shan’t be held responsible if he ever returns in a bodybag
He mouths the words slowly, chewing it, as if the caveat were made from uncooked cowhide.
Sweat salutes his forehead, Then they march and stampede the sparse bush of his brows
& the steep path of his jaw – the ceiling fan whirling above doing little to quell the turmoil
Outside, the old generator is firing like a Kalashnikov, offering soundtrack to his thoughts.
The café operator frowns at the boy’s delay & whines like an old general about running
out of [ammo] fuel. We will all die, the operator says. He has seen many [war] recruitments.
The caveat is industry-standard; the brutal intimation of imminent mortality only a mere formality.
With resolute eyes, the boy says proceed. To be a soldier, you need a strong, cold mind, the operator says.
Which is to say: You have to be numb. Frost the fire crackling in your heart.
Which is to say: Die before your death. Embrace rigor mortis before the rigor.
It’s the way of the military. Bless their hearts: They are numb when they live & just number when they die.
Abdulbaseet Yusuff is a Nigerian writer. His works appear in Rattle, The Indianapolis Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Pidgeonholes, Cutleaf Journal, Brittle Paper, and elsewhere. He's on Twitter @bn_yusuff.