The Cost of Winning

a poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

On the plane of Iraq bombs fall in line
smoke arise looking like giant trees,
an alley of death,
each bomb a million dollars
a cost accountants nightmare not knowing how many died.
Does each death cost ten thousand dollars or a million?
If each death can be brought down to a dollar apiece
we won’t have to rise taxes,
petrol prices can be as they are,
we can be sorry
but freedom has a price
and we needn’t worry if soldiers
that fall off branches of cloudy trees have families,
no one will ask no one will care
if we get our sums right.