A. Z. Foreman

The Patriot
 
     His mind was like his village under fire, 
Broken the very day his dad was shot,
When his nation sniffled surrender through a wire. 
The nation recollected, he forgot 
     Much in the good use the Resistance won 
From him. A black hair-trigger dignity
Could hold his courage steady as a gun,
Morale more steadfast than morality, 
     With his heart bloody strong despite the thing 
The interrogator did to his left eye,
The cause within him coolly hardening
To truth no fact could liquefy. 
     When he held down the woman in Berlin 
That he was raping, he could therefore clench 
His fingers coolly on the bruising skin
And shudder only at her broken French. 
     Could watch her father snivel at the gun 
And feel disgusted only by the snot,
Judge that a race deserved as it had done,
And shoot him where he broke her on the spot. 

A. Z. Foreman is a literary translator, poet and immedicable language-acquisition addict currently working on a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His translations from Arabic, Chinese, Latin, Modern Occitan, Spanish, Ukrainian, Russian, Old English, Old Irish and Yiddish have appeared in sundry publications including Metamorphoses, ANMLY, Blue Unicorn, Asymptote, Brazen Head, and the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. His translation of Saint John of the Cross’ “Dark Night of the Soul” has been set to music by Christopher Marshall. He also sometimes writes his own poetry if the weather in his head gets weird enough. The most important fact to note is that if you have a dog or even a tame pet fox he would very much like to pet it.