FIGURE EIGHT
A tank loaded with washing machines wrapped
like Rodins looted from disemboweled apartments,
on its way to join mercenaries who’ll half-dig graves
in a half-frozen pine forest before taking a nap,
passes a cruise missile lodged nose-first
in the road and painted “for the kids,”
passes a bullet-sprayed car and soup kitchen
worker who will change his walking route
trailed by a campaign of dogs, past gouges
in the square where a kid in clown makeup dances
a figure eight, for whom terror clings
to the sound of tambourines, to balaclavas,
to the scent of a busted tomato, leaking.
