TOYS
They were lying side by side
In the mud, in the foreign mud.
Listening to the music
Of fire and steel, and jagged steel.
With fear squeezing their hearts
In the dark, in the terrible dark.
In the endless, screaming, deadly dark,
They looked away from you.
When they looked back you were gone
In your place a crumpled uniform
That fed the earth.
A toy, broken and tossed aside
By the spoiled child of war.
written 1998
