Dead Boys by J.Khan Title and last line after "Dead Girls" by Kim Addonizio The camera pans hillside jungle before zooming to our hero, face up, body splayed, and stubbed by a missing limb. Next, the signature close up: angled handsome jawline, blue eyes snuffed and clueless. In another film studio, buddies find their missing brother on the road to Kandahar. Someone drops bloodied dogtags in a Ziploc baggie to be delivered to the house where he grew up playing Call of Duty, where death was an internet hiccup. Nothing grips a theater like a busted-up hero. His platoon's gonna 'copter what's left of him to medics who will trundle him upon a reddening stretcher, cut & stitch him back to life, unsever his arteries unless he dies first. Who would want to be him? Any Johnny raised on YouTube and spaghetti westerns who can pocket a few Glocks and enough rounds, strap on some Kevlar. Even plain Joe who feels he don't amount to much and likely won't, already convinced that his kind can't get a fair shake. Except that he can be that hero, glittering redeemer of the race thick in the fusillade of gun and riflefire, the special, dead, dead boy. Copyright 2023 by J.Khan
J Khan is a Midwestern poet. His writings have recently appeared in I-70 Review, Burn Before Reading, New Letters Magazine, Thorny Locust, and Coal City Review. His Chapbook Speech in an Age of Certainty is available from Finishing Line Press. He has two illustrated poetry books nearing completion.
