A construct currently in vogue
with theorists and jeunesse doree:
our bodies mediate between the inner
self and outer world; but we perceive
the body through our culture's lens.
Does this mean there are different
ways of dying under bloody skies,
where the sun is blotted out by cluster-
bombs, the moon by missiles?
Distant leaders - foreigners - keep their flesh
well out of range, preferring to see children
pay the price of old men's hubris.
So a child flies like a pigeon to his father's
arms to die; a little girl is vaporised, leaving
her rag doll intact; a boy lies in a hospital,
surrounded by his next of kin, his mother's words
a lifeline as the blood drains from his shattered
limbs: "You are a hero, darling, you are a lion…"