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At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center
5
Brian Turner

Born in 1967 in California, Brian Turner earned an MFA in poetry
at the University of Oregon before enlisting in the army at the age
of twenty-nine. During the seven years he spent as a soldier, he
was deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and served as an army
infantry team leader in Iraq. His work has been published in various © Kimberly Buchheit
Redefining America
journals as well as in Voices in Wartime: The Anthology — published
in 2005 in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of
the same name. Turner has also published a memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country (2014).

KEY CONTEXT In this poem, Turner blends and juxtaposes experiences in the Iraq war with a civilian trip
to a large home improvement store. The disorienting and often debilitating memories of wartime experiences
are characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). By some estimates, 20% of veterans of the Iraq
war suffered from PTSD.

Standing in aisle 16, the hammer and anchor aisle,
I bust a 50 pound box of double-headed nails
open by accident, their oily bright shanks
and diamond points like firing pins
from M-4s and M-16s. 5
In a steady stream
they pour onto the tile floor, constant as shells
falling south of Baghdad last night, where Bosch
kneeled under the chain guns of helicopters
stationed above, their tracer-fire a synaptic geometry 10
of light.
At dawn, when the shelling stops,
hundreds of bandages will not be enough.

Bosch walks down aisle 16 now, in full combat gear,
improbable, worn out from fatigue, a rifle 15
slung at his side, his left hand guiding
a ten-year-old boy who sees what war is
and will never clear it from his head.

Here, Bosch says, Take care of him.
I’m going back in for more. 20

Sheets of plywood drop with the airy breath
of mortars the moment they crack open
in shrapnel. Mower blades are just mower blades
and the Troy-Bilt Self-Propelled Mower doesn’t resemble

12
Copyright © 2021 by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
Distributed by by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.

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