(Quirk a brow at those
Words—real, war, to live)
Is not cats and birds,
Nor you, wolves, and deer.
No, dear. The real war,
Red in tooth and claw,
Has no teeth nor claws.
The fight’s germ on germ,
Phage on phage. That’s right.
Most life you can’t see
Fight for most of life.
There’s your fog of war,
All the small fierce lives
That eat small fierce lives,
That can make you sick
The way you can make
The seas and woods sick,
Fire and waste and plague.
That’s nice. Out of sight,
Each force eats each force,
And what does not die
Will change to eat more.
All this time you sought
Gods through the wrong lens.
