When they killed my mother it made me nervous
I thought to myself, it was right:
Of course she was crazy, and how she ate!
And she died, after all, in her way,  for the state.
But I minded: how queer it was to stare
At one of them not sitting there.

When they drafted sister I said all night,
"It's healthier there in the fields";
And I would think "now I'm helping to win the war,"
When the neighbors came in, as they did, with my meals.
And I was, I was, but I was scared
With only one of them sitting there

When they took my cat for the Army Crops
Of conservation and supply,
I thought of him there in the cold with the mice
And I cried, and I cried, and I wanted to die.
They were there, and I saw them, and that is my life.
Now there is nothing. I'm dead, and I want to die

                                                                      Randall Farrell (1914-1965)