to map Hell

Bullet has muzzle velocity, so great:

1,235 feet per second

and 1.2 seconds after being fired,

it meets steel helmet,

who held up as well he might.

But bullet's force was great,

and He was melting and vaporizing and

spritzing out tiny droplets of lead

as helmet surrendered,

gave inward, bulged the steel,

and onward rushed bullet

1.204 seconds after leaving muzzle,

jagged outer edges of  helmet now behind Him, He met

hair

who held Him up nowise

in His journey.

Skin gave way to mushroomed bullet and

bones deformed at His will,

671 feet per second forward He went as He tore

into vessels too shocked to bleed,

and nosed through soft gray-white-crimson

stuff

hardly hard as warm butter.

First, He cut through the memory of Mother,

then thru a small dog, eyes shining upward;

through a first kiss, a used car, a classmate's smile,

but what the Hell it ran amok through a huge area of

scraped knees and pulled pigtails,

then a small amount of fear-about this and that-

about bullets,

then through a respected Father,

and next the warm, inviting skin touch of a girl,

and plans for a house-someday-and tears,

a smell of acrid wine first tasted,

the remembrance of raucous birds calling

in the foggy gray dawns of winter;

of food cooking, the aromas tasty and pungent;

of sex, and school, and sandwiches, and sorrows.

Then bullet was through it all, that brief map of life,

and out the other side easy as punch,

flicking helmet's edge,

continuing on,

erratic now,

partly flattened, traveling 662 feet per second, slowing until 853 feet 

beyond the tipping helmet,

He rested Himself in the bark of a standing tree,

still bewildered by His path,

duty done, 

to map Hell

where paradise once had been.