by Charles Simic
We played war during the war,
Margaret. Toy soldiers were in big demand,
The kind made from clay.
The lead ones they melted into bullets, I suppose.
You never saw anything as beautiful
As those clay regiments! I used to lie on the floor
For hours staring them in the eye.
I remember them staring back at me in wonder.
How strange they must have felt
Standing stiffly at attention
Before a large, incomprehending creature
With a moustache made of milk.
In time they broke, or I broke them on purpose.
There was a wire inside their limbs,
Inside their chests, but nothing in the heads!
Margaret, I made sure.
Nothing at all in the heads…
Just an arm, now and then, an officer’s arm,
Wielding a saber from a crack
In my deaf grandmother’s kitchen floor.
