The evolution of ceasefire

Fearful of knowing too much,
as if we have witnessed the
crime of living, we
test the sensitivity of our
bodies. Sprawled on the ground but looking up,
we fight our ability to dive,
and the battle finally eases as
skin tightened against the ground.

Five thousand years of needing to
do something: finally we comply. A poet
holding ink brush to paper would have
closed his eyes, squeezed his shoulders,
and abbreviated these wars in a single wound,
not this continuous hemorrage
from the history books.