Late one evening, not doing much,

I glimpse the latest news on screen.

Soldiers from Ukraine, dismembered

At the front, battle to insert

The cold stumps of their missing legs

Into new replacement hollows:

Each faltering step agony,

Their cries the rage of raw courage.

All hanker to re-join the fight

And kick the cheap destroyer out.

Anger swells, somewhere. They should be

Fathers, Husbands, Sons, not victims

Of wartime’s clucking cowardice.

I stir and scribble down a note:

‘Write Something’. But what can one write?

Who sleeps soundly in their skin now?