Editor’s note: When this poem was published in our May issue, the last two stanzas were inadvertently dropped. It appears in our July issue in its entirety.
How many boys who loved playing army, Who loved pretending to be shot tumbling down summer hills, Who loved pretending to be dead as their best friend checked to make sure, Or who loved pretending to deliver their last-words soliloquy wincing in imagined pain or lost and dreamy, Find themselves years later trapped on the battlefield Hearing the voices of enemy soldiers Searching for corpses to mutilate or wounded to torture to death? What man remembers those idyllic boyhood days then As he lies still as possible Trying not even to breathe, hoping beyond hope the enemy will pass him by, Knowing if he’s discovered they’ll cut off his cock and balls and stuff them in his screaming mouth And then, before cutting off his head, disembowel him before his eyes? Ah, thousands of boys and men have met this end, Millions perhaps by now, so many people, so many wars.
