little Eichmanns
for Ward Churchill
getting fired for telling the truth
is nothing to be ashamed of
maybe it’s for the best
maybe the little Eichmanns
reflected on
the evils of their ways
while praying to their
blond, blue-eyed Jesus
on that fateful day
or maybe they didn’t
at any rate
America’s vengeance
for 3,000
translated into
1 million dead in Iraq and
a somewhat smaller total
in Afghanistan
it depends on how exactly
you figure the numbers,
I guess
whether you include
“collateral damage”
and deaths from starvation
in the final sums
of the Empire’s reckoning
anyway
who’s counting?