March 10, 1998: Kosovska Mitrovica, Yugoslavia

You remember the old stories from Genesis
and laugh out loud about how dumb that Adam was,
but when the angel delivering the last judgment
is the father of a boy you went to school with,

a father wearing a ski-mask for God's sake,
you have to wonder who this God is your parents
are always talking about, where He is, and when not
only you but the whole football team is quickstepped

out of town, the afternoon sun pushing you farther
away than you've ever been, leaving only
the goalie and the back-up goalie you wonder who
has taken over the league, and when you see

your mother beside you, carrying the last piglet
(the runt whose name is Bromo) and a sack of groats,
the father nowhere to be seen, smoking his pipe,
you wonder whether school's been cancelled, how stony

the new place will be, who's going to referee,
and when you turn around to look for the lost goalies
and you see the whole town on fire, houses falling
in on themselves, you want to run both ways, but don't.

But can't. You wonder where the firemen are, the grown-ups
you've grown up with—the coach and the teacher, the priest
and the milk cart. And you guess what's up with a guess
that sinks your belly like the end of Sunday.

— Martin Galvin