Poem: Refugees

 

Refugees

 

in the gardens,

petals fluttered down to weave rosaries.

no one dared pray on them, or the fretful stars,

those pigments of bone.

 

instead they walked among battered brick,

cities that lacked a hearth.

chokeberry juice dyed their tongues.

they boiled the bark of broken trees to chew.

 

not so heavy as tank treads,

dull legs slugged it out with the ground.

tattered shoes tottered in the deeper mud,

where corpses lolled, immune to dysentery.

 

no rest, nowhere, for eyes ripe with tears.

why lay down unless commanded by a final sun? 

why scavenge for dreams under the scythe

of a doomed, mournful moon?

 

with nothing left but stains

--of tears, hope, blood, and salt--

all their fat gone, lost to dead relatives and homes,

the refugees found the hem of a realm so green

that war lost its name.  so much so 

that the citizens there didn’t recognize it. 

 

these well-fed ones

smiled at desperate scarlike mouths. 

their welcome of wealthy words

shone calm as gold in a mysterious victory,

one that made less and less sense,

when they fastened more and more locks

on the perfect gates.

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