Shell shock hits early for the recruits in “5/15/1984,” one of two powerful poems by J.G. Walker in our Summer 2015 issue (available online via Amazon and Createspace, or at independent brick-and-mortar stores like Bluestockings and St. Mark’s Bookshop).

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TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS AFTER THE HEAD-SHAVING, it hits us,
Forty odd kids wishing we were anywhere but here.
No one wants to look in the mirror,
Afraid of what might be looking back.

Little-known fact: We awake five minutes before
Reveille, stumbling in the dark, fussing
With itchy socks.  It’s one of many surprises.

The deck is beneath the overhead,
A floor is a deck, the toilet’s the head.
Cool water flows from the scuttlebutt.

There’s a joke in this place, we’re sure of it.
We should be laughing, but our
Lingua franca is still a work in progress.

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J.G. WALKER is a writer, musician, and teacher who lives with his wife in Colorado. His work has been featured in Oracle Fine Arts Review, Lullwater Review, and Aoife’s Kiss. He is currently trying to create the impression that he’s hard at work on a novel, Visitation: A Novel of Death and Inconvenience. You can find him at odd times on Twitter @jgwalkr or online at jgwalker.net.