Steven Schroeder | like wars (part two)
nobody but nobody wins.
one surrenders, the other struts.
but the same war settles on both, settles
on all like drizzle in fog,
the kind that makes one wonder
whether it comes down from the sky
or up from the ground. no
matter. you can hardly call it rain,
so you don’t think to open an umbrella
until it dawns on you
that you are soaked to the bone
and the world is over its head in it.
it lays its hands on everyone,
like white noise that hisses
until it passes as silence,
as presence under the drone
of commerce. when
people stumble
over bodies again,
they will imagine another
war, another disease. but it is
the same one that has been
in us all along. when
people stop counting, one will surrender,
the other will strut, and it will go on.
it will go on. it will go on
and on. nobody
but nobody wins. nobody always wins.
and nothing matters more than
we can possibly imagine
everybody knows.
Chicago
26 February 2022
