The Headline Sofa/For SuperBen

Headline:
"The stench of martial
law pervades the country"
and, deep
in the countryside and
safe from such
screaming, a farmer rises
with the sun to let his
chickens feed.

By eight sweat rivers down
his head, every last
piece of grain pecked,
and the chickens run
free as troops-in-jeeps
rumble through the
baranguay.

Now the news has reached;
now the farmer herds what
he has, and
now the pen is shut, the
screen door is latched - not
that the outside couldn't
force its way in anyway.

Talking outside is hushed and
text messages cease as the
farmer wonders, wonders,
wonders . . .

as a boy he ran naked through
brush and barbed wire and
never thought to arm himself
with clothes, or shoes - now
he wonders what they may
try to take away.

Two sofas, covered with cloth,
are rice sacks: neighbors
tease, chortle when he sits,
but now they are no sacks left
in the storeroom,
you see?

As a child, he remembered that
things not held to the earth,
not tethered or locked,
not hidden in plain sight or
unspoken,
disappeared by nightfall.
Some blamed vampires but the
boy was realistic: he knew better

As a man, he knows better than
to be conspicuous admist the
rumble of jeeps painted,
flora-like, jeeps armed with
aggression and watching eyes.