after W.H. Auden

Staring up from a field in Pakistan, your eyes
like the eyes of any child. Your face enlarged on a poster
that can be seen from the edges of the human inhabitable zone
on this lucky earth; and viewed again on our screens
while eating or opening a window, or just walking dully along.
Drones that hover their targets don’t see.

I sit outside a café at an unsteady table on an uneven path,
where another child, lifted high on shoulders, waves her tiny hand.
There’s a seamless sky behind the weight of cherry blossom;
and I’m unsure whether to share with friends
the image of you—as pixels to the wind—or to simply forget
and build my delicate home the way I’d like it to be.