by Steve Pottinger, with image above by Fran Lock
only that each tank will beat
itself into a thousand ploughshares
and snipers, dead-eyed, precise as surgeons,
draw bullets out from heads and hearts
back across a kilometre of air into
a breech, leaving only healing
that they collect a hundred bullets,
hand their gun back, walk away
that soldiers cut the ties on bound
and naked men, clothe them, tend
their wounds, lead them back to life
as doctor, nurse, mechanic, grocer
that ministers who monger hate will open
their mouths, find their own tongues
have rebelled against them, can spew
out only love, and love, and love
contrition, forgiveness, and love
and when fighter jets sweep low
over rubble, raise it into buildings
where plants grow on balconies
where there are photos taped to
fridge doors, where there is the smell
of baking, and spices, the sound of
mothers calling up and down stairwells
all these promises of future, we shall
look up into the blue of the sky
above us, see how quadcopters
soar and circle in squadrons, kites
which carry only the precious payload
of children’s laughter, poets’ dreams
