The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
BY RANDALL JARRELL
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Years ago I knew a man, “Ernie’’.
Ernie was a ball turret gunner in a B-17.
He said the only reason he felt he made it home alive was that he was in a B-17.