disquietingmuses
"Dew Roses" Copyright 2000 Dancing BearPlastic Army Men in Snow
They patrol in country, posed
in the snow killing ground, boot-deep
like wedding cake brides and grooms
married inside a ring of icing roses,
in a picket line crossing a picnic tableland,
where their general left them
for hot chocolate.
They are good men, who melt
like crayons when they die,
whose grim, green faces
watch the backyard no-man's-land
as sun scores furrows for dragon's teeth,
falling between the tabletop's planks.They are good men, even when they feel
that their hands are tied molded to gunstocks,
that they wear leg irons and roach motel shoes
around their feet planted in a kidney
slice of motherland, that their enemy is near:
Wearing my small balled-up fist
like a glove, I set them up
for drumhead art and friendly fire.