From the train window
The sad shadows
And damp gray stones
Of a bombed-out house
Between Florance and Milan
Half standing
As a memorial
To World War Two
And the sullen shadows
It casts even in the fog
Like living tombstones
Move every day
And scream silently
About the garnished wages
Of war.
Now, in two thousand three
Men who fought in World War Two
Maybe taking a piece of shrapnel
In the knee in nineteen forty three
Are waiting up to two years
To see a doctor at Togus.