three thousand was the body count in Afghanistan

raped by a democratic army.

no one has ever seen them, or recollects.

but we have the vietnam war and WTC memorials.

add two, subtract four.

my father, growing old and funny in the head,

used to go for long, stray walks

dragging an ancient, purple bobsleigh behind him.

he would drive it amongst the saplings

and venture into the forest

in search of a few naked branches

or a shadow of a huge, whithered tree.

he always strayed too far, so that on his way back,

he never knew where the bobsleigh was hidden.

oh no, messed it up again. the bombs. the bombs.

where the bombs were hidden

in 1959 in Cuba

and elsewhere.

when Kurt Vonnegut asked about the bombs in Dresden

fifty years after,

it was classified.

we will never know for sure.

my daddy knew everything about the war

and he wouldn´t know for sure.

the bobsleigh was buried beneath the snow

and we always had to wait for the spring

before its magnificent purple front

appeared out of the mud.

add two, subtract four.