the proprietor with dead eyes
the color of flint,
welcomes my grandson
into her chamber of horrors,
a macabre room filled
with the paraphernalia of killing–
gas masks, bayonets, pistols,
grenades, bugles, swords dating back
to Thermopylae; blood-letting by
the Persians and the Greeks.
Manikins dressed in uniforms
from WWI, WWII and ‘Nam, lend
an eerie presence, their eyes
turned back to the echoes of the fallen
fathers and brothers and sons
in the ongoing dance of death.
My grandson flits like a moth
between items, curious about their age
and value, whether each dusty weapon
is ‘one of a kind,’ (most important to him,
or if he could get it on eBay for less.)
He has no inkling of damage inflicted
by a high velocity bullet–
glistening intestines spilled on the dirt,
sucking chest wounds, bloody stumps,
brain squeezed like toothpaste through
a hole in the skull, eyes pleading for
morphine, eyes begging for a quick death.
He knows only light sabers, water guns,
paint ball battles. But this is his 10th birthday.
Even a large, unfurled swastika flag dis-
played in the back room cannot deter him
from choosing a ceremonial Chinese sword
with a horse hair, calligraphy stylus pinned
to its engraved scabbard. Perhaps a nod
to the gentler arts, while I avert my gaze,
as we betray the poppies blowing
in far flung fields, and listen once again
to the dark reckoning of our baboon brains.
