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