I Spy

Child-rolled cigars thicken the morning mist.
Squatting in the market, he hands them out
to the lads, arranges tea; chewing, listening,
buying, a gleam in his eyes. All
that happens here becomes his to know;
freedom to live in poverty, his to bestow. Don’t
be fooled by civvies, pot belly, greasy grin.

I saw the man yesterday at more dynamic work,
in a settlement my boat slid past on Inle Lake.
His companions held guns he didn’t need,
not personally, as he listed to the headman
the negative effects of hiding a deserter.

On the old man’s fifth, resigned call,
the boy jerked down the outside stairs
of the stilted dwelling, took his silent place
in the army boat, neither beaten nor insulted,
conscription-numbed. The spy sneered
at the staring foreigner, whose eyes held no threat
to the slow, unsleeping juggernaut of power