Two Girls

Eighteen-sixty eighteen sixty-four,   

six hundred ten thousand men   

gaseous gray, blackened body parts   

like chopped wood in Virginia sunshine.   

Or nineteen-fourteen nineteen-eighteen,   

trench rats, thousands, big as badgers,   

rip chines from horse and human flesh.   

IED's, cluster bombs, punji sticks,   

primed to shred feet, thighs, spine, sack,   

yesterday, when we were countless.

Conscience says Count them up and be good,   

suck on me like red candy stick

in casual lookaway moments.   

Protected by neighbors, two girls   

villagers know to be deficient   

doll themselves up as bombs   

for market day's chickens and yams,

and like a world-body neural surge,   

their protectors fly into fatty parts.