The Sculpture
The rusted tank by the roadside,
grass, even a few flowers, growing
around and up through the turret.
Its broken-backed gun barrel reaches
like a pleading, dying hand.
Two skeleton-thin children,
dressed in rags, clamber over it
as though it is a rock formation
rising up from the ground,
or some playground apparatus
donated by wealthy benevolence.
It has lost its meaning as a weapon,
the children no longer run from it.
It is an obstacle, an item, a landmark.
It could even be a sculpture.
Did the teenage boy who fired
the missile that blew it apart,
destroyed its meaning,
the knight that killed the dragon,
ever realise that he became an artist?
First published in Interpoetry issue 15 (website no longer available)
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