the warrior child

The Warrior Child

Little Johanna and I sat under a bridge I was going
to marry her when grown up, she fretted, said no,
so I bit her chubby, summer brown arm, she cried
ran home, her mother too said I was a bad boy.
Fed up with women and their tears, I ran off and
joined the German army, they had a barracks nearby
and a cannon pointing upwards in case a bomber
should come our way; I sat on it and pretend
shooting down enemy planes, had a rifle too made
of wood, the real thing was too heavy, loved being
a soldier till I ate some sweet smelling snuff, threw
up and was carried home, but my dreams where often
plagued by white, still faces in the snow, the dark
realities of war no child should have to witness.