Reprise

After the marches 
 after the telegrams 
  and the petitions 
   the letters to the editor 
    the speeches cheered 
     and booed 
      After that other poem I wrote 
        four years ago 
         when my husband said 
          “Maybe the war will be over 
           before the poem is published.” 
            and I smiled 
             but believed in the possibility 
After all that 
                                    like a scene shown over and over 
                                    on a motion-picture screen 
                                    by some maniac projectionist 
                                    who is fixated on the moment 
                                    when the throat is slashed by the knife 
                                    and you are roped to your seat in the theater 
                                    not really convinced of what is happening 
                                    struggling against paralysis 
                                    as in the terror of a mid-afternoon dream 
                                    when you try to wake to face the stranger 
                                    who is never in the room 
there is no new news 
on the evening newscast. 
            I sit at the dinner table 
             rolling a crumb of bread between my fingers, 
              planning my next move, 
               rehearsing arguments in a dead language 
                that will fall on dead ears, 
                 and I see that my shoes are soaked with blood.