The Unwaged War

The Unwaged War

Alone I fought the unwaged war,
before it meant infamy or fashion:
before it sustained sects and violence,
I ate it cold at every sitting.
I swelled the figures, but not my own,
applied for leeches from the state,
only to learn--what learning’s for—
the donor can’t get back his blood.
I slept in houses let to the wind,
my stomach cramped for lack of space:
a bleached chamaeleon, a landed whale,
an enemy of the stateless, homeless kind.