War Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spoilage

He didn’t mean to suggest
the harvest would be easy.

We have to get all the skeletons out
of the graves.

Today we bury one and another is shot:

the stoic soldiers are losing
their bullets
in each other

Didn’t they get the memo? It’s the end
of humanity, faith,
not the end of courtesy.

I asked Cyrus how we could end this violence and he quoted
Wikipedia: “this definition associates intentionality
with the committing of the act itself, irrespective
of the outcome it produces”

You make everything into a story so no one is to blame.

He laughed at us, the people of paperless libraries:

Knowledge comes from crafted bindings, not 1’s and 0s.

So is it surprising we have forgotten the simple things? like
never kill a boy on the first date

Even if he greets you as I, Robot, You, Jane?

Sadly, we killed all the witches, even the good ones, burned at the stake.

Except the last guardian, an old crone, skin and bones
We dig her out of the closet and she hands us our answer.

By Lisa Eve Cheby

Biography:

Lisa Eve Cheby’s poems and reviews have appeared in various journals including The Rumpus, The Citron Review, Tidal Basin Review, A cappella Zoo, and TAB, which nominated her poem for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. Lisa’s poems are also found in the anthologies Drawn to Marvel, The Burden of Light, Coiled Serpent, and Full: an anthology of moon poems. Her first book, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is available from Dancing Girl Press and was featured in The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed Series. She was also a 2017 Writer in Residence at SAFTA’s Firefly Farms Residency. Lisa holds an MFA from Antioch and an MLIS from SJSU. http://lisacheby.wordpress.com