Each day I see men
driving their cars like
the dead. Tearing down the
highway, sometimes I dream
I am my grandfather
in the 2nd World War.
He sweats on Leyte
and shoots at the Nips,
as if he is his grandfather
forced into the fens
but still killing Saxons.
A smooth-tongued Welshman
who wishes he knew
his grandfather-
exiled from Italy for knowing
that even Rome burns.
While lighting his pitch torch
my twice great grandfather
was thinking of his grandfather
knapping stone knives
in what is now Africa.
A not-quite man whose grandfather
grins over his shoulder
and is called Death.