I do not share your faith in the moral power of exacting
tribute from the war, but this is not the time nor place
for that. This is my gift to you, a postcard taken by
a German amateur, in 1915, in a ghosted village
near Marseilles. It shows an army dilettante,
exposing a film roll of a rotten horse, killed
by the strike of shell fire, ribs poked out
like the hull of a ship or a cheekbone
of the man who preserves this scene.
The well's run dry, the bantams peck
at oystershell, and a lame girl sings.
A grizzled private's shoes shine, another
pouts and scratches at pox on his knees.
But why does the soldier bother a shot
of a socketless bag of bones? Look
and you'll see, unseen, a second old nag,
blown up onto a roof behind them, so placed
to show our amateur the folly of a nature morte,
in trying to image the horrible truth.
So alas, he tries to rescue his brain
through irony, by pushing the camera's button.