Back In The World

He had witnessed
the innocent dead
piled up
in a country
far away
where death
was commonplace
and no one
baked cupcakes
bearing the names
of the slain,
only keened
like maternal sirens
against
the inevitable moment.

He took comfort that
Back in the world
the children
roamed in safety
and grew plump
on promises
far from land mines,
shrieking Phantoms,
dangerous strangers
with barking weapons.

He did not,
could not,
foresee a time
when those
same weapons
would turn
their deadly mouths
on babies,
not back in the world.

But the sins of the fathers
circle back to the world
and the bodies of children;
doom grins like
a death's head
at the karmic irony.

Now that illusion
of a last, safe place
is rent and torn
and there is
no longer a world
to go back to.

   mce