The Insurgent.

• Author: Wilson, Eliot Khalil
• Position: Poem

No one saw him climb over the Hesco barriers, so he just appeared and walked under the lights where no one ever goes. An actor who moves in my sleep, he talked to the air, his hands tucked under his arms. A boy who might have been cold or wired. A cattle herder from the nearby farms or Taliban out to plant an IED. We knew the protocol of escalation, hand signals, warning shots, the distance limit. He walked, we fired--what was termed a precaution. The boy was...