Walking Wounded

It must be a horrible mistake.
No rosy fingers; just steel chewing up velvet
and mourning doves shouted down by the bloodcurdling alarm.
Light-years from intelligence I swim heavily
through shadows of coffee and linseed oil,
a corporate dress code and midnight’s dreaming turpentine.
Quiet paint glows ultramarine in the mother of pearl dawn;
trees and faces promise to pay their own way... someday.
Maybe “combat” is not too strong a word.
Some conquer, some surrender, some die.
Some, though wounded, walk on.