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by Victoria Dym

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(“Letters from the Helmet II” mobile version)

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-After letters from PFC Maxwell Dym, USMC, 29 Palms, California

massive ravens live here, mean looking bastards that pick through
the culverts full of rotting trash, uncover carcasses of chicken and cow.

the size of turkey hens, that murder of crows, glisten in the sun, black
iridescence, embody souls of those who have recently died, gods and

goddesses, war and death, they rage on pale lizards, white sun bleached
things, that rear up onto their hind legs, accelerate ferociously, stop-startle.

rattlesnakes in the wind, dessert assassins, whose venomous music scores
the night patrol of coyotes, at first, a pair, moving like ghosts on a mission.

then, a pack of eight, special forces working as a team to fight the enemy.
a Marine stands alone, empty parking lot near the chow hall, twenty-four

hour fire watch. He is hungry, sunburned, and exhausted. What he is not:
the coyote, the raven, the lizard, nor the snake. He is, but a tumbleweed.

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Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters in Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. Her two poetry chapbooks, Class Clown, and When The Walls Cave In were published by Finishing Line Press in 2015 and 2018. Victoria lives in Tampa, Florida, where she writes and teaches Laughter Yoga.

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