Sonnet #357

 The annual fantasy we take in Memorial

Wherein the war is behind us, now

And no one else need bleed to show

Their glory to the school tutorials,

Wherein the price is just the backdrop

of a show on pbs about the price

that love demands, once or twice

a century past, and our grief stops

with the rolling credits, play the music,

maestro, fireworks dazzle and doge

commands, where snow falls to this

cemetery old men visit to show

the children about the horrors of the past.

All of it a lie: the horror comes again; it lasts