On fields in France
harlot hills in the pocked earth
lie with virgin deaths in mud.
Rank beneath poppy skirts
war sent to deflower
and draw youth from its shell.
Poppies are not fragile flowers.
They like disturbance of the ground:
the pounding of the well-trained gun.
Restless, insatiable,
blooms short-lived
spread wide their seed
far from the marriage bed.
Men follow lonely men
answering the call
Le suivant.
Wondering each who’s next,
going to die for king and country:
next to hell
with the whore to hell
with the mademoiselle
and the longing for
any sensation
any cessation.
A dry bed in Blighty.
A wet tear. Hope.
A pox on the fields in France.
