where is the war?

where is the war?  is the war in the ampules
of the morning dew, globules

whole and peaceful?  or is the war rather
in the lavender geodes cut open on the jeweler’s

counter?  does the war live in the classroom, children
pacing out slow textbooks?  where is the war?

is it in the overriding calm of this morning,
what one always refuses to tell?

 does it live, this war, in one hundred thousand
commuters, each sheathed in her metal, gliding

 glissando, fearing no danger?

no, our war is elsewhere.
for we have determined it so.

and when I wake, I can’t hear you
for the roar of the clouds

the dropping of dawn
on the unsuspecting   city

“where is the war?” is from And Aeneas Stares into Her Helmet (Carolina Wren Press, 2009).