we believed we’d seen it and seen it
clearly: sociopathy and its rationale,
the need of the state, protection racket
that gives the bullies not only something
to do, but something to do without
account, with impunity. Over the door
not the blood of the lamb but the word
WAR: so that now in that house death
is welcome, invited, as in Gaza,
where two men hold a charred roast
of a child, seared meat and bone, for
the camera, for our eyes. Do we feel
pity? Yes. Horror? Yes. Who cares?
Who cares what we feel, looking?
We retch at the wretched. Who cares?
They are not us. We are troubled at
the breakdown in dialogue, the failure
of diplomacy. It’s very complicated,
we read; negotiations have broken off.
Yes, right there: where the child’s foot
once was, there, where, like a leg
of lamb, the bone pokes through.