PO-YUMS

The snow settled on the old pine trees like an x-ray,
searching out some kind of cancer,
and the best that I can do is wonder
just exactly what you’d say about it.

I was seven–almost eight, bouncing on a knee,
and if I’d known anything of war
not played with flimsy, dull-edged cards
around an old extendable kitchen table
every two Sundays, I might have asked.

I’ll bet it changes people, war, I mean.
Lead-tipped and trigger-operated
death, strafing all those mothers’ sons,
mortars like small-town fireworks,
and everything I’ve read about.

It’s cold here, and my footprints explode
into this inch or two, and then disappear,
lost with each gust of wind. And if I could,
I’d ask how a kid no older than me
can get sent to hell and live to talk about it.