How do I tell you now about the way
they placed it in his hands, a baby’s weight,
just as tenderly pulled his shoulders back
to take the heave and coil, every fresh blow
leaving him sore, the sour echo of this
is how you kill a man?
It takes a man
to do that for his country, they said, and there
in the wet scrape it seemed almost true,
knowing a body’s length of new earth lay
upturned, packed tight to rest his barrel on,
not daring to move, legs and torso stained
with an afternoon’s digging, as ten a time
slipped away to practice advancing
from point to point, or picking up the dead,
the whole earth shattering beneath them.
Don’t be scared,
these aren’t even live.
He learned to play dead, always the lightest
in the group, the one his friends would plan
to evacuate, arms crossed over one
another’s to stabilise the casualty, last man
claiming his rifle where it fell so we don’t
give the rascals anything. If you’re lucky,
he’s still breathing (and always, the refrain)
if not, don’t move him.
It’s hard to tell
the truth of it – even half, he thinks – but these
are the things he knew, or maybe knows now,
or wishes he did, is what I’m saying.