Tomorrow, the Lord of Life and Death
Will again be keeper of the public latrines,
But today, with stone eyes and a stone hand, I salute him.

I knew him before he was powerful.
I put money in his pockets and food in his mouth.
For him, I ordered the dead to canvas the living.

My God is a resigned acceptance of the solitary and the pointless.
The graves of my soldiers jostle one another for a place in the sun.

But they never notice us. Our faces are on statues.
Our barracks are the intestines of birds and fish.
Our names are long rebukes on pieces of stonework.

But, in the villages, time is a train you can step down from.
A wise woman is always at hand. Her prophecies always come true.

I know it will all end when his widow stands before his open grave
And asks who shot his enemies.

I’ll shoot him then.