War games

Save a bed frame. Touch the voice
on the transistor radio
Lick the sun and the smoke.

Shimmy your hips faster
than the buildings. Make love
to a rocket.

Collect skulls

Save water

Play call and response
with the ambulance. Find a toy
in the rubble.

Swim
around a warship.

Turn on the power generator
for thirty minutes.

Count your bones.

Breathe air.

Nina Karacosta lives in Paris. Her chapbook Previous Vertigos was published this year by Corrupt Press. “War games” is a response to events in Gaza in 2009, meant to highlight the absurdity of war.