Elfriede Mollon

There Was A War

Bedraggled casualties strugglewalking,
Limping, breathweary,
Home from the war –
But war got there first
In a preposterous irony of betrayal –
Repudiating eyes mirroring rewards of destruction,
Landscaped by a ruthless death;
Home and war united inextricably
Without distinctive lines –
No start, no end.

Crouch, soldier,
On your scrap of has-been edifice
Where images of loved ones
Hover above your sobbing,
As your comrades march on
(More crawling than marching),
Dismembered bodies and fragmented spirits,
Unreassemblable,
Towards their own scrap of has-been edifice.

There was a war,
And it came home.

Elfriede Mollon, © 2009