(on June 23, 2016, the government of Colombia and the main guerrilla army, the FARC, signed a bi-lateral, definitive cease-fire after 52 years of hostilities)

they signed away the war,

locking up in the toybox

the collective, extended

childhood of two generations;

they took a nice picture,

every face clean,

every eye open

and turned

smartly towards the camara.

now a nation

grown up on stomping

feet used to flying

into fits

at the ugly sound of no

has to learn to step

gingerly

because every blessed,

bleeding, beaten, beating,

battered, brutal

heart in Colombia

is a little piece of jungle

or scrub land

strewn with waiting mines

hungry for legs and lives:

these you don't dig out

with picks and spades,

or if you do,

the work

stops

abruptly

after one.