we bomb
and we bomb
and we bomb
and we bomb,
our breaths no longer for sustenance, only fuel;
vindictive, smug in their dustlessness,
their clarity.
we bomb and we bomb and we think nothing of the bombed,
nothing of our own grandchildren
whose fates we've sealed into living in rubble.
an elder waves his hand,
hasn't seen dust in a generation.
his prodigal sons snicker at the suggestion;
soothed,
spoiled,
taught to bomb,
never to befriend or even to look over one’s shoulder.
our elders die,
peacefully,
never knowing.
because now
the bombs will not stop falling -
relentless, almost dull, they can't.
habitual,
instinctive,
our grandchildren will admit they find them a nuisance
but the murmur is too familiar;
the distant thuds a comfort they rank alongside their lover's heartbeat.
all the while
the winds change
as they always do,
as they once did for us, remember?
the bombed
also had children
whose children sit now under the shade of military towers their fathers never lived to see.
dust rustles listlessly at their ankles,
they turn around, just to check,
and then
they bomb.
musée 