And then there is the soft innocence of small arms,

the round oval of the wrist/stock, the clarity of skin/metal,

the single crease inside the elbow/trigger that tells it.
What happens to the rest of the body

when they've sold the arms? – at eight, he asks,

after listening to us talk.
In Colombia the militia might slit the skin

of his forehead or pectoral to pack in brown-brown

– raw amphetamine – and top up this charge

with booze and ganja, so fear cannot be found

in any of the atoms left in his eight-year old head.

He'd be given orders, a machete, an M16 –

a light child-sized innocent sort of small arm,

– -ex-US Excess Defense. He would find

the answer is, once the arm is severed at the shoulder

or wrist, -short or long-sleeve as they say –

a man, a woman or a child, will live or bleed to death.