supine thoughts

War Games

Staring out at the field beside my childhood home, 
I remember the taste of tap water
tinged with the plastic of a gun. 
Children wailing from both sides
of a rotting wooden fence;
'You're dead, you're dead!' 
Soaked to the skin and
laughing triumphantly in a summer haze,
the winning team watch on as small bodies litter the grass. 
Exhilarated cries of youthful soldiers
ring through the estate and somewhere,
a mother sighs and calls like an air raid siren 
for the 'troops' to come home for tea
(and get out of those sodden clothes.) 
Her voice would reanimate we fallen few, 
and we'd fall in line like privates returning from duty
to jump the fence and scamper away from our war games. 

I'm not sure we ever called a cease fire.