The mothers, nursing battle-guns at their breasts
Shriek out, but in what sentiment I cannot tell.
Them, the tank-mothers, they beat their bodies with bullets
And lick the dust from their babies’ brows.

And they dance the soviet march with grace
But leave treadmarks engrained rather than
The delicacy, the line of footprints embedded in the sand -
There is one-day-it-will-be-glass there.

Or is it one-day ago glass? I can never remember if it’s the future of a car window
Or the aftermath I’m looking at.
Do those grains have any needling desire left or are they
Like walnut shells strewn and crunching under heels?
Just dry and flaking marrow.

I wish the mothers no hurry – I like the sand.
Regardless of potential or fate or car windows or
The minute, pinprick necessities of fiber-optic cables
Threading their way through the bombs like milk
From a breast, like veins through a baby’s skin.