Pax Romana
Pax Romana
(Wonder Woman)
A boy, no more than twelve,
chanted, through shuttered eyes,
something about freedom from tyrants,
a government in homage of its people.
I hardly heard him over the howling
crowd, the firecracker gunfire, the Molotov
cocktails washing down in hot, smooth
arcs across the red-bricked square.
By the capital building, there was a girl
serving out homemade napalm—
a recipe she probably dredged
in the bathtub of a too small home.
An army man—not far away—stiff
and afraid, like plastic, squeezed a finger.
His bullets ran through my hair,
dashed into the stomach of the crowd.
I had one hand on his porcelain wrists
when he said, in broken English,
“In next life, I think we should,
all of us, choose to be diplomats.”
from the collection “…hide behind me…”
click to hear me read this poem
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