six in snow suits like sardines

brian dickson
(photograph by Christopher Morris, TIME war, Saravejo 1994)

Someone tried to walk in there, maybe
the sexy president, his hair all camouflaged
in the powder. Strange he didn’t see the fire-
red sled arranged like a tombstone,
the blades burrow like worm’s bodies
in the maze of a moist morning. Plumes of
smoked holes marked the silver, cloaked
fingers that scaled the skin shiver. No, no—
let’s not go in there, the simplest of packages,
the shimmer fins of sardines cooled prints in the snow.