I’ve never seen the sky there,
forever gazing down on lands
and creeks I’ll cross only later,
perhaps that night, surrounded

By the casualties of the day.
But I know each path, each step
from the village to the market,
the river to the well, each

Their own ritual of banality.
I wish it were a game, ghosting:
white plains bespotted black
by scattered sheep, herdsmen,

The blood of a man’s leg
I severed from afar
yet close enough to watch
the wrenching drain of death.

Closer still is the stench
of men at war in cubicles,
fighting the urge to flip
the channel, shift our sights

To the living among us.
Damnation is not death
but choosing who to die,
rewinding their demise, feeling

That adrenal rush of pride,
uncertainty, and shame.
Each morning we played an anthem
for doomed youth, unaware

The demented choir was our own.

•

Alex Little is a lawyer and writer in Nashville, Tennessee. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Tennessean, where he was selected by readers to be a regular columnist. More of his poetry can be found at his website, alexlittletn.com.