Impunity Wears a Wristwatch

A shadow at the kitchen table,

Spoon clinking in the dark.

War smells its way home;

Peace, a bandage on the wrong wound.

Soft footsteps of a cat burglar

In the antechamber of power.

History's thick thumb smudges,

Both the guilty and the saint.

Smoke rings rising from a gun barrel,

Kiss the lips of a silent God.

Pigeons roost on statues,

While the dead discuss the weather.

Irony, with a straight face,

Serves supper—bullets and bread.

The clock ticks in the rubble,

Impunity wears a wristwatch.

Gloved hands weave war and peace,

In a loom of broken bones.

A child's eyes, ripe with questions,

As the world counts its coins.