The Comforts of War

Such irony in small comforts
when you can actually close your eyes
undisturbed by a mortar blast

a second so quiet you hear the moon
when gas is a fog full of veils of sweat
& you feel your body glow like a cigarette

when there is no letter of grief sent home,
or grass smothered by tank treads,
or moldy bread lathered in mud

when my toes do not get dry rot
falling out as flakes of teeth
and stones do not whisper my epitaph