Let Me Tell You

Show,
do not
tell,
they say.

Should I show you how she is—
bent
with sodden shoulders,
eerie knees,
bulging neck?
Bent into a ball,
like a festering kastania 
oozing
after it had been stepped on,
its shell pressing hard in.

Look at her!
Shaking
bare feet,
black with muck,
six toes:
two lost to frost,
the others
to a pellet
from a shell.

Look at her!
Shaking
with a breath—
half white,
half red—
unable to contain
the life in.

Look at her!
Lean figure,
bone lean,
sagging leather pockets
for breasts,
and teeth removed
to relieve the pain.


Here she lives,
next to the pile
of filth,
the buoyant filth,
swimming
between homes
when it rains.

Why show you the pain?
Why do you need to see,
to understand?
Circumlocution is just a game.
So let me tell you
the truth
about the war.

It ends with
death!