Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

BORDER GUARD
Now and then, a man whose job it is to shoot
his fellow citizens, enjoys a day at leisure.
He does not go to a crowded cafe. The dreary
bleached faces on television annoy him.
The films and books he would like to see
are forbidden, the satire plays closed down.
He walks down streets that have forgotten
their names, opens a twisted gate and walks
into a ruined cemetery. He likes it here.
These people died before the bombs,
before the chapel became a shell,
when the living had time to honor the dead,
the patience of stone carvers
to mark their passing —
when the living had space to house them
each in an individual grave —
not the quick, anonymous flame of cremation
nudged from behind by the next in line.
The trees were planted before he was born.
No one nails slogans to them.