To Carthage Then You Came(For Lyn)

To Carthage then you came and other fabled places seen now only through the lens of War. Here you are in simple black & white playing football with scrunched up rags camouflage tanks your only spectators the horizon a thin cruel line of infinity. Desert rats the thing of history books to come now only a bunch of laughing lads. The desert everywhere about you. Young boys pretending to be young men pretending to be soldiers and not succeeding. This a game played for real. War has made you so. I show you you again & again wearing the many faces that you were. Death lurks in every face looks out of your eyes with the knowledge that it could be you now you this time. Photos taken then Time stopped still. I see so many bright eyed young man. Their youth their most notable feature. “Dead...dead...dead! ” you intone in place of names as if it hurt to name them. But I know from other times that this dead man is John. This one Fred your best best friend. Even now you talk of him as if he could walk in the door at any time. The door forever closed The last photo shows an insect crawling in a dead animal’s skull.