The People of the Other Village
hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
To our heads for refusing in their
presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail
them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken
glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our
brother's throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were
good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their
wheat.
They sent us exploding ambassadors
of peace.
They do this, we do that.
We cancelled our sheep imports.
They no longer bought our blankets.
We mocked their greatest poet
and when that had no effect
we parodied the way they dance
which did cause pain, so they, in
turn, said our God
was leprous, hairless.
We do this, they do that.
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.
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