10/13/01

You were something of a village outcast, but you were sweet,
and brought me figs in the morning and grapes and cakes in the evening.
We watched the river undulate through apple orchards and overstep the canals.
Once,you handled a little toy elephant and made its trunk move with your fingers.
I suspended my disbelief until it seemed the real thing, lurching down to me
through the canebrake. But you just giggled and threw yourself into my arms.

We knew the old religion had died into embers barely aglow,
that the severity of its terms had fought the silver-haired apostates to a standstill.
Once, with a rifle, a gift from the most high, I charged a parapet on my own
and stumbled into a gaggle of mice. Pink and almost blind, they had nested in the gun-mounts.

There were little cubbies in the walls where the prisoners were taken
and doused with brine and crabs, as in the old days: the more
it changes, the more it stays the same. I can only guess
how many casualties we had. I saw the wheelbarrows and the trenches.
A limping elder dressed in brown rags touted firewood in a wheelbarrow,
the amazing thing: it had no wheels upon it.

The premium for peace I thought was a paper flower in a buttonhole
not wads of cash. Surely a phase of collective incrimination will follow.