I saw the same sad magpie twice today.
Does that count as joy?
Solitary bird.
Sat beside the greenest grass.
Sat upon the safety of the fence.

That night he sees the moonlight in a pool;
"I'll keep this trinket in my nest".

My uncle Paul. Born when other people
wanted to forget the war,
twenty years before I arrived.
We drew grey tanks on scrolls of paper,
splattered soldiers with our red felt tips.

What do you do when the sirens start?
Turn off the gas. Seek shelter. Do not panic.

In my grandma's bathroom was a box,
made from a hollowed out tortoise.
Inside, snug and heavy, like the last
solid Russian doll, lay the grenade.
Safe. No charge. So my uncle Paul said.

The earth still smoldered when the tortoise
first walked. A survivor of the last Great Dying.

I've never seen a bomb explode.
I've not been deafened by a blast, nor
smelt sulphur tinged with rotten meat.
What is war without the dead?
An empty stage but for the props.

The heavy velvet curtains twitch,
as the stagehand checks the house is packed.

A single spotlight swoops then rests;
illuminates the uncaged beast. Scales, horns,
bristles, teeth; frame his clammy goat-like face.
Seven magpies peck the boards. A cacophony
of squawks drown out the murmured audience.

I am a dying memory.
I am lifeless as the hands that made me.