Pained

*Mother likes to say*

*She was braver at*

*My age*

*And I retort that the*

*Grenades are better*

*This days*

*She says that the rocks*

*Were her beds*

*At nights*

*I tell her that the rocks*

*Are laden with bullets*

*And shells*

*She says I am a disgrace*

*To her, running not at the*

*Sight of war but at the sound*

*And I reminded her that the sound*

*Of war had made her lover absent*

*At his daughter's naming ceremony.*