Make no mistake gentlemen
This is a staging area for war
Walls a dull and barren pink
Ready for red trench warfare
A woman quickly learns the jargon
The drug names, the side effects
The prescriptions for hope
The officers stride in calling names
Nurses in skirts or one pieces
No pants allowed here
No obstructing the avenue of attack
Obscenely healthy and smiling
Egg shell shocked survivor soldiers sit
Exchanging thousand yard stares
White faces need no powder
Look inward, find nothing
Something has gone wrong
With the coupling and decoupling
Five hundred million soldiers
Burnt in acid, smothered
Lost in endless caverns
Only one winner can emerge
But this time again, none
Or else babies lost before they were
Shapeless ghosts of dreams
Like worm eaten wooden crosses
Behind a pioneer homestead
Science drags its steely fingers
Along the battlefield
Readying for trench warfare
Trying to find the answer
When sometimes there is none
Except loving hope and hopeless love
And the coupling and decoupling
Of two soldiers’ hands
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