Killers, now

The dead bodies lined up,

their navy blue uniforms

submerged in a hypnotic crimson.

-

A truth hushed, a silenced voice,

twisted bodies just a

testament to their

‘technical success’.

-

Over the swelling sea,

they smile and shake hands in glory,

the white house remains white, unstained

by that chaos,

untouched by the blood.

-

They’ll decorate their fodder with

dull metals and congratulations,

firm handshakes from

faux-smiling faces,

trying to make then forget

that they burned bodies,

in piles,

for the sake of a flag.

-

Six months from now, those who managed to make it

will still have dull pains in the limbs

which are no longer attached, reaching

out to scratch the air. They will not

find jobs. They will tremble with fear

in the supermarket aisle, shattering glass jars,

when the wrong sound meets their ears,

when backfiring cars bring back their buried pasts.

-

They will drink at the dinner table, and harshly scorn their daughter

when she innocently asks what her parent is up to,

silently staring, remembering, regretting.

-

They will salute, and cry, and mourn, and speak a eulogy, which is more like a soliloquy, beside a casket

filled with a friend.

-

They will get none of what they were promised.

-

The posters they saw have since disintegrated

and taken the hopes of every hero with them:

-

The waiting partner, seeing their love forever altered,

the joyous children afraid to make their presence known,

a country like a haven, (a)political utopia

the treatment of a hero — just a killer now.