The Propaganda of Memory

You stand in the picture, all khaki and gleam,

where the sun found you grinning

around the stump of a cigar, holding

a wooden friar ransacked

from a French churchyard.

In the field of smoke-banked light behind you,

in the rubble of gas masks and shell casings,

helmets sparkle, and the leftovers of battle

bend to the inevitable will of forgetfulness.

The breeze lifting your hair has lost

the stale smell stolen from the mouths

of dead men, and this you,

drawn together by light, silver

particles suspended in emulsion,

is freed from the thickness of the scene, frozen

in the twitch of a photographer's finger,

leaving you remembering this moment

the same way glass remembers sand.