by Brett Rutherford
"Hungry?" he said.
"I'm never hungry
the way I was
when we got lost
on the Eastern Front.
"Russians swept in,
we, after. We chewed
on roots and leaves
as we hid in the forest.
We watched a house,
a one-room hovel,
as puffs of smoke
went up, then died.
"Gunshots we heard
in the dark,
and when we looked
at sunrise, the door
to the place was open.
Two bodies lay side
by side in the dirt.
"We waited. We waited.
So famished we almost
crawled, at last we dared
go to the farmhouse.
"That smell. A pot —
steam rose from it
when we lifted the lid.
'Soup,' I shouted,
'My God! It's soup!
Cabbage and potatoes,
onions and meat!'
"I put the ladle in.
I lifted up.
It was a human foot
at the bottom.
"Young man:
we ate it anyway."
