Along the Broken Avenue

The town, ripped up like a carpet—flung to the side like a broken leg. In its scar the soldiers marched. Chanted for a ruler who ate in his highchair while he penned in their death warrants. Overhead birds of death floated, their naked beaks dying for flesh. It’s cold, so cold a little brown mole crawled from its bungalow and died right in the snow, its little tracks a treasure map to its demise. Everything around war takes on the property of destruction. The little girl who survived and who’s lying in the basement of her home doesn’t know the rubble has trapped her into a coffin. A dog sniffs along the broken avenue and swallows an ear. The ear of a praying man who was blessing his family’s food when boom! From tailfeather to beak a robin is infected by gun smoke. Black eyes, black beak, black heart. It’s all dark on the northern front and the soldiers march from bleakness to doom. Happy with this overtaking that is to lead to their severed legs and exploded hearts. Their red, white, and blue tucked triangle and mother’s bitter tears. If they knew that, the chanting would be replaced by sobs and their marching knees would find the dirt. Along the broken avenue, they’d weep to the grey, smoky sky.