Verbissen
You told me you were lads then, your brother and you,
living in burnt-out tanks outside the city. You
each had your own tank. By day you clambered about, by night
you slept in pitch-dark bunkers, with no thought of home.
Your mother was already dead and your dad was a soldier on a front.
You ate with your hands what you could find on the fields,
potatoes you dug from the ground, and doves you’d grill
on an open fire just like the farm boys, and with your teeth
tore the meat from the bones. You said it was tough, and good.
There were more of you, underfed, agile and sly.
Authority was no more – you were altogether almighty
where you were. And mechanised – coated
in a rusty scabbiness, from the old metal.
You ate war. You knew: whose aeroplanes were overhead,
what type of bomb . . . you said you had code names for yourselves
gleaned from a half-burnt history book. Who was the Jew
amongst you – who understood Russian? Verbissen you called him
but his code name was Titian. After the war
he became a metalsmith of sorts. One day
with a whitehot iron he burnt
the Star of David into his arm,
lest he ever forget.
