Life After Wartime

Some things never change.

The garden bushes wag their beards

like arguing theologians while the orange fists

of passion fruit take cover in the leaves.

The sky aches with unmapped distances

and the sun hides nothing.

At dusk, it surrenders to the moon.

When there’s small-hours muttering in the street

remember it’s only someone deciding to go home or go on,

pushing the night for the last of the great good times

and into a shell-shocked morning after.

At least there’s coffee again.

It takes our minds off the radio,

the smooth-voiced reassurances,

the metaphors encrusted like barnacles

on every announcement, your almost

imperceptible jump at the sound

of a pamphlet shoved through the door.

Things never change.

People wear their silence like a caul.

To bring them luck against drowning.

They were parents. Or siblings. Or both.

They are the ones that nothing surprises,

the ones who no longer look up

when a jet comes roaring in above the city,

framed against the orange sky,

picking its way among the towers. 

Tom Phillips

As originally published in '100 Poets Against The War' (Salt, 2003), then 'Burning Omaha' (Firewater, 2003), Novy Vilag (Budapest, 2003), 'Recreation Ground' (Two Rivers Press, 2012), and Jeta e Re (Prishtina 2013). 'Recreation Ground' is available from Two Rivers Press: http://tworiverspress.com/wp/recreation-ground/