Sacrifice

Sacrifice

So much beauty butchered and for what
So many dizzyingly handsome boys
From the outer boroughs
Tall Italian boys with licks of black hair
Like apostrophes over their unmarked foreheads
Short Polish boys from Detroit
With massive cocks and fists 
That could break bricks
So many beautiful so many
Who climbed narrow stairs to visit their grandmothers
Eyes clouded with cataracts
Who touched their faces and asked for great-grandchildren 
So many beautiful boys walking
Into the teeth of death singing
So many who drowned in surf 
The foam pink with blood 
Who asked for a last cigarette
The smoke trickling out of the wound in their chest
So many beautiful bodies dragged away
Flies already daubing their eyes as if to staunch the light
But wait wasn’t this body an hour ago
That boy from La Hoya with the golden hair
And eyes so blue the straightest sergeant
Admitted he was one good-looking kid
Wasn’t this body that Hmong boy 
From the Twin Cities who could do more 
Chin ups than anyone else
Doesn't it all feel a little wasteful now
Dying for ideals
Elites have the luxury to believe in
So much beauty butchered
And all for what