The older men traded stories
of wars they lived through:
how they had little to eat
but rice; and when that ran out,
salt and bananas, even the peel.
They fashioned slings and sat
on their haunches deep in the grass,
waiting for frogs, for quail, any
oily morsel that touched a talon
to the soil. The generation
immediately after them told of how
their children came of age turning
bottles to bombs, or braving
the smoke and water cannons
in the streets. Some children
were conceived during mercy
visits in jail cells. Some friends
were captured, tortured,
and killed. Past the curfew hour,
some raided the arsenal at the military
school. The rest of us moved through
the world, careful to avert our eyes.
Careful not to reveal how we listened
still to any news from underground.