Others, The

They slept and ate, like us.

Feral they were not.

The intricacy of their handiwork

bespoke a fineness we'd be taught.

Yet we wiped them out.

It was eerily easy to do,

although they knew we were coming

and knew we knew they knew.

Not only did they not resist

our guns like bloody hacking coughs

in their libraries and hospitals,

their bedrooms and their schools-

they would not acknowledge us.

We felt like fools. There was no keening.

Even the children did not cry.

It was as if meaning

inhered so deeply in their daily

lives we could not touch it;

nor would they quit living to be

slaughtered, it was so inviolate.

Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Mar/Apr 2004
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