I have been watching the war map slammed up for
advertising in front of the newspaper office.
bu*tons--red and yellow bu*tons--blue and black bu*tons--
are shoved back and forth across the map.
A laughing young man, sunny with freckles,
Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd,
And then fixes a yellow bu*ton one inch west
And follows the yellow bu*ton with a black bu*ton one
inch west.
(Ten thousand men and boys twist on their bodies in
a red soak along a river edge,
Gasping of wounds, calling for water, some rattling
d**h in their throats.)
Who would guess what it cost to move two bu*tons one
inch on the war map here in front of the newspaper
office where the freckle-faced young man is laughing
to us?