Sky for a Silent Boy by Antony Owen

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

And they knew one green apple could poison the others,
how western eyes would gawp from Sangin’s sky
and eyes of their brothers would judge them from mountains.
~
And they knew when songbirds broke beaks upon the water
that all the virgins would be ruined in a village
so they shot them for food and sang of their nests.
~
And they knew from the map of a hen’s bloodied throat
that all the eggs would be covered in dust
so they left them on rocks for concaved dogs.
~
And when the drones came, flowers closed their mouths
a throbbing blister sutured the days remains and
war bled sky for a silent boy.