do you know what petrol
and soap makes? no,
I don’t mean the bar soap
from the local market. not the ones
you can find at
a temple, but maybe in
the hands of the same gibberish
-speaking man who held
the Carbine to the temple
of your great-aunt. I don’t mean
the petrol your father used
to let his truck live a little longer,
but what ended them. do you know
what ribs can mean? no,
not the ribs of a well-slit pig,
boiled with the apathetic soup
of a soldier’s heart. I mean
the taste of a gunshot

and the battered bellies that have felt
everything but fullness. do you know
what a home is? not the rotting crumbs
your brother sits at, not the gale
burning his body. and not
mortality slotted between
gums and teeth. I mean
how your braid pastes itself
onto your skin like a lover
whenever a windstorm begins
to lean close, whenever
the boy’s mouth turns into a slice
of distorted melon… I mean
how people always want
what they can’t have,
how they confiscate the world
and call it war.