for my grandfather
You were an odd sight, efficient and pasty-skinned
in the land of perpetual sunbathers. You hated the sea;
love was an unapproachable coastline. Instead,
you preferred mountains, dug-outs, old shells. You had
one overruling obsession, the war: the Second World War,
the one you were too young to fight in. Unfazed,
you brought it home. Your enemies: your Hausfrau
and two daughters. Unlike soldiers, they couldn’t surrender.
Films on Rommel, your hero, electrified your frame,
yet despite reading his letters, you overlooked Krieg
ohne Haß … When senility tried you before its tribunal,
it offered you life (with limitations). You refused.