Coda

Fifteen million were killed in World War I,
and more were taken apart alive,
so many broken from what
they loved and from what loved them.

Somewhere on the Amazon in 1914,
a naked boy, never knowing hatred,
pretend fished with vine and stick,
and held his family in sweet moist night.

My mind is like these.
Though rockets and whiskey killed him first,
I want to make my grandfather die again
for tearing out my mother's heart.
When I am outside, I rise to treetop cathedrals
in ecstasy, though they tremble of late.

When Germany was winning, they were out of metal.
In towns, church bells were given funerals, and then melted.
I wonder what the children thought.