By: Keith Moul

Across the bow blows a divine wind, the kamikaze.
A battle at sea teaches us about God; and God burns
His image in the minds of the living; God incinerates
the dead, so often leaving boiling blood as residue.

Fear in battle, the momentary scare of known death
on the deck, or unknown death waiting for its moment,
you know, that reaper hanging above every breath,
are different as night and day, hell and heaven.

This is why, dear, another letter may have failed,
may have given you the wrong impression
of both me, now, and my universe of war.

No exploding Jap will show me how to meet my God.