It
begins and ends on TV screens
and
in jets the cross-hairs
quarter
the earth beneath the sky --
the
skull is fragile soon the projectile
pierces,
explodes, and teardrops
of
metal and momentum tear
through
your self and memory.
I saw
pictures
of you scattered in mud
in
some farmyard, hoof-marks by your head,
and
rain pissing contempt down
into mire-pooled water, blood
on
clay; your hands empty
and
the others' open-handed also,
and
the troops now exited. It is long
since
past your time --
I am told this
by
the way the rain water trickles
and
leaves traces on the backs
of
your eyes, by the sense that somewhere
below
the puddles and waterlogged clay,
on
the submerged side of your face,
there
is an unraveling of knotted pink
and
you are naked there, the only
naked
that is ever obscene. For you,
the
end was in incongruous dark; oh
it
was simple, blunt.
And watch
at a distance something
which
might look like you
soaking
in war-wet soil and wonder
if
you might also treat your enemies
thus
given half a chance
and
a grenade.
I forget myself:
Such
things weave spiderwebs:
change
the channel!
I reach
for
the remote.
