Being Human

In the disgusting evening, after our stiff fingers undo
the sticky buckles of armors battered by the rain
of steel and spear, I lay staring up into the dark
heavens. The suns drag their bellies along the tips of pines,
weary limbed bystanders, never catching up their sad green into the blaze.

The calm of pinky dusk recalls me to an afternoon
spent stroking the cheek of a precious stranger made known
for a moment by love, how we kicked across the crab grass
after supper into the cool green of the summer woods to watch
the tiny flicker of fireflies, hand in hand, no need of faith.

Neither the steady cricket sounds nor the delicate bulge of lady slippers,
bending their necks over the mud, compelled me to a desire of universal peace,
an understanding of graceful arcs; until the wounding, until the trickle of blood,
spreading in a sink of water, became just a tinted reflection of my blanching face
and in becoming pink, mocked how sharp a red nicked the bone.

After that departure, I saw the inconsistent lamps,
powerless over the fierce wood, lighting half a leaf at a time
or blowing the faintest scent from their pink cheeks.
My eyes filled with the glistening of memory, hopeless prayers of return
to just before we pushed our chairs out from the table that last supper.

I had this knowledge: peace emerges from a minute of night
and draws as many violent feet as any God.
We dip our fingers in a pale of water, and wipe our boots with leaves,
scattering the evidence of our murders as if admitting
that silence after a final heartbeat cares little about the variety of uniforms.

Beside me, the marks of the mail fade slowly from your skin.
We are naked, but our sides are riddled with rigid arrows,
beliefs, history. The face of the lady slipper dips in shame,
not bent to kiss her muddy reflection. Who could kiss himself
that knows what it is to be human?

We act no better than the pines, waiting for the wind
to make them lean together. We lay our limbs down
like branches, refusing to love again,
knowing that to love is to walk into battle, to walk into flames.
And our tears catch moonlight, flash like angels, still impossibly gentle.