We'Re Not In Rome Poem by Jeffrey Quattlebaum

Sitting here in the sun
on a step of red brick
I feel like a beaten soldier
taking in the morning
the sun on my face
warms the wound
dries the blood
and draws sweat from my brow
I look through squinting eyes
beyond the light
and into the next life
which
i believe is death
a confusing idea
if only it is to be born
again
to laughing parents
with an eye for decoration
and a fenced in back yard
to be raised
by machines
and sent to fight
until the moment
they are born once more
to dogs
and fed at night
with shovels
and pushed into a ring
while the men with their fists
pumping into the air
clenching the bones of the weaker
gamble on the first
to die
again and again
I am dead at one moment
to some
and at the very same time
I am alive
looking into the sun and beyond it's
burning
I stand from the red bricks
and walk back into the
fight