WHO SAYS SHEEP ARE DIFFERENT FROM GOATS?

(КОЗЛИЩ КАК НЕ ПРИРАВНЯЕШЬ К ОВЦАМ?)

Who says sheep are different from goats?

Church and Army have their communalities.

– Those vestments tacked to icons, their gold

glittering like epaulettes.

You could be in a dugout: candle stub

whose wick gives off more soot than light;

frescoes shimmering like a campaign map,

the hosts of Hell closing in tight.

Golden cupola like a radio dish.

Jangled nerves from the bell tower.

Pigtailed sexton like a signals miss:

‘Come in, HQ! Send backup! Over?’

Why should persons of the cloth

do that forehead-floorboard pose

unless they catch, rising from beneath,

the clang of caterpillars coming close?

Foreign limos creeping up to churches,

inexorable as the tanks of NATO.

Candle stubs an old hag finger-pinches.

Who knows, maybe that’s the way to go.