'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner'
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 rom its dream of life.
I woke to the black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' by Randall Jarrell is a poem about
a soldier dying in the ball turret of a fighter plane during what was most
likely World War II. The poem tells of the fear of young soldiers being sent
to war and their thoughts of dying.
The poem is told from…
