War Requiem
two blue-grey German caps
big for child heads and serge-itchy
brazen with eagles rampant
on claw-seized swastikas
emblems of Panzer rank
stitched-on torn-off Nazi tags
icon-embossed buttons ripped
from Wehrmacht worsted corpse
all these passed through our fingers
in rare moments when father
could be persuaded to reveal
demons that kept him from reunions
his stained commando knife
and cheese-wire garrotte
all shiny refined-grain handles
his compass his cyanide capsule
monosyllabic to our interrogation
he would return Pandora’s coffer
to its locked cupboard on high
fobbing us off with safe morsels
how hard training at Loch Eriboll
made it for them Loch ‘Orrible
how they bootblacked a comrade’s
cock and balls on wedding night
what banes from that box linger
most of all the peat-brown liquor
spirit-level bubble
in clear bitable isinglass
I see my father tortured
Promethean liver-pecked
but nipping this bitter pill
escaping down this final tunnel
long after he sold his box
his medals his young manhood
somewhere that tiny poison
kept EXIT a-glow in the dark
television blares closing ceremony
volume adjusted for the deaf
London’s Olympic Games are over
an old man is rug-sprawl cold
there is the empty jug
there are the rifled blister-packs