Killers, now
A poem
The dead bodies lined up,
their navy blue uniformssubmerged in a hypnotic crimson.
A truth hushed, a silenced voice,twisted bodies just a
testament to their
‘technical success’.
Over the swelling sea,
they smile and shake hands in glory,the white house remains white, unstained
by that chaos.
They’ll decorate their fodder with
dull metals and congratulationstrying to make then forget
that they burned bodies,
in piles,for the sake of a flag.
Six months from now, those who managed to make it
will still have dull pains in the limbs
which are no longer attached. They will not
find jobs. They will tremble with fear
in the supermarket aisle, shattering glass jars,
when the wrong sound meets their ears.
They will drink at the dinner table, and harshly scorn their daughter
when she innocently asks what her parent is up to,
silently staring, remembering, regretting.
They will salute, and cry, and mourn, and speak a eulogy, which is more like a soliloquy, beside a casket filled with a friend.
They will get none of what they were promised.
The posters they saw have since disintegrated
and taken the hopes of every hero with them:
The waiting partner, seeing their love forever altered,
the joyous children afraid to make their presence known,
a country like a haven, apolitical utopiathe treatment of a hero — just a killer now.