Cynicism

My student was talking about a film 
he described as terrible— about terrible 

human beings and how they did terrible things 
to each other, with no relief at the end. Not 

even a shot panning away from the broken window-
pane and into the shadowed hills, not even the noises 

animals make in the woods, magnified by the dark. Why 
even does it exist, he asked? why do people watch it? 

A movie can be like a poem, and a poem like a movie.
Nested images, personae, mood, some kind of setting. 

A poem can seem to have several movies nested inside 
it. But even the bleakest poem couldn't have complete

cynicism: otherwise, why was it turned into a poem?
Someone took all the koi out of the small pools

by the entrance to a battleship— nine guns, three
main gun turrets— now turned into a museum.  

We recall seeing the flash of orange and gold
scales as fish darted through moss-green water.

Chained by two anchors, the ship almost doesn't 
seem connected to something as terrible as war.