Public canteen. Bloated flies.
‘After 6 pm no food served’.
Bushes, with something yellowy-violet
that isn’t going to survive.
A palsied veteran, still in army gear,
pokes a finger in my ribs.
‘Scare’? No, it could be ‘spare’.
‘Spare some bread’, he raps.
I let this Deadeye have the bread
left over, and some yellow beer.
He watches with the white bead
he has for a left eye; it can’t see.
Not quite all there, apparently,
he reaches for his borshch using a fork.
It’s nigh on half a century,
and to this day I still backpack
this memory that won’t entirely fade;
it proffers endlessly inside my head
the left cheek of a face –
yellowy-violet, and dead.