So much war to be eaten.
So much poverty.  So much
damnable activity to be sucked upon.

Here, she said,
offering the Northern Lights,
Kilimanjaro, the Devil’s Causeway.

Feeling full, turn back
to the slaughter and shuddering.
Not more tolerable —  not that.

Say, instead, less intolerable,
but still that.  Say hope; then,
show someone else there is still that.

in college
we called our empty
bottles of beer
“dead soldiers”

this was in the years
right after
vietnam 
and the active draft —
it meant something then
though the meaning
was already fading
a little

youth of today

do you still call your bottles
“dead soldiers”
or are you starting to?

are you 
part of a privileged set
for whom “dead soldiers”
means only discarded containers
and nothing else
or part of the world
for whom it means

brother
father
sister
mother
comrade
lover
neighbor
empty