I remember the photos,
still images from a security camera,
a border guard realizing that his day
had gone horribly wrong.
I’m sure he went to work
the way he always did,
put on his uniform with a wry salute
to the blue-yellow banner.
There was a defect in the footage,
the man’s face, paled I’m sure
but made bakelite-orange,
a reflection from his magazine.
Did he fire his rifle,
AK-47, Kalashnikov’s piece,
a beauty, still full of grease,
or did he drop it in the snow?
I’ll always wonder if he survived,
new pictures come every day,
but one bedraggled soldier
is so like another and I cannot tell the difference.
The apartments lie in ruins
and photographers snap pictures
of children playing in the rubble,
and of the bodies,
the bodies
the bodies.