Kalashnikov Candelabrum

for Mark Solomon & the Peace Art Projet,
Cambodia, 2004

There being no art supplies in the nation,
the government of Cambodia donated
thousands of decommissioned Kalashnikovs
to the visiting artists, and it was with those
death machines-disassembled, bent, reshaped
from what they were into what they were not-
that they taught the children to make flowers,
chairs, and tables; elephants, miraculous fish
and other mythical beasts. As well as this clegant
black steel candelabrum, brought all the way
from Cambodia to a mountaintop in ldaho,
from its relentless fire to these five mild candles,
burning again and again and again and again,
and yet again, for our lost American lives.