Touring the Battlefield
There are no civilian casualties
in the war fought in my family.
We launch the most precise strikes,
take out the primary targets,
never hit the wrong embassy.
We are trained and tested
in the ways of combat,
know the slice of guilt
works better than any blade,
are disciplined in the nuclear devastation
of silence—
even more powerful
than the measured word.
We can itemize the artifacts
of every major battle,
display them with the proper narratives,
revealing every detail:
this is the china cabinet your grandfather insisted on installing
even though your father would have done it eventually
even though eventually had not arrived
in the two years it had sat in the corner,
this is the open space where the gun cabinet was
before your mother died
and your grandfather reclaimed the weapons
because no one in the house knew how to use them
and your father kept threatening to turn them on himself,
this is the stuffed animal your father bought for you
with the five dollars he had in his pocket
instead of getting lunch,
and even though that was twenty-five years ago
those hunger pains still echo.
Each attack is precise and planned,
aimed to hit its mark,
and somehow it does,
every
single
time.
