The missiles keep finding them, no matter the distance.
Concussions shake the children’s cribs
as if collecting the interest due on yesterday’s lullabies.
Today another street disappears,
all of its house numbers suddenly divisible by zero.
When they saw how goats grazed placidly
ten kilometers down the road, they moved
the entire town, to the board and barrel stave.
It didn’t matter. The enemy
bred bombs with bigger wings.
Tracer fire is spread across the night sky like lipstick
before a housewarming party. The fists
of a hundred explosions pound the tables in the tavern,
complaining about the hospitality. Smoke
again embraces the people in the street
like a friend who had given up all hope of reuniting.
The same thing tomorrow, next week.
The sirens have become just another birdsong to their ears.
During lulls they swap necessities
with the haste of jugglers whose primary goal
is to get off the stage.
Only the old women plod mutely to market every day,
umbrellas up, cradling eggs in their skirts
like bombs that will save lives
when they’re exploded in skillets at home.
