Listen:
Volcano bled fire
and covered the moors.
Terrain like a sheet wrinkled.
In the desert an airplane dehisced.
Genes paired and shivered
in vain artifice.
Scree filled the bedrock floor.
Detritus, our ingenue.
I mean the land was innocent.
I mean war sizes ran small.
We kept the kills quiet
amid rows of pale clover,
sugarcane and millet.