I live inside walls of breeze blocks,
Concrete and cinder halls.
My enemies live on the other side.
We meet sometimes—
to negotiate cease-fires
between cigarette breaks.

Still, while he offers peace,
he sets up artillery.
I ready my firearm.
She rings the bomb alarm.
The Luftwaffe ricochets—
while he prays...

He is more religion than a man.
She, more hurricane than a woman.
And I—something like a child.
Only the old and the unkind
keep count: forty-three, forty-four—
we are still at war.

After the cigarette burned out
The house burned down.
They say, "Child, take this to the grave."
If you made it out alive from the battle of Crete
Parents, I survived the friendly fire.
While you bombarded, I built the Roman Empire.