War Parade

            We marched up and down the streets of Kiev, muskets rested on our shoulders and conjuring doves out of the windows of Soviet-era apartment complexes. The people in the street were too timid to look up at us as we passed, heads held high and jubilant smiles etched on our faces. We marched clear to the square of government buildings, where real soldiers smoked at the entranceways, AK-47s resting on their knees. They hated us. Doves fluttered all around us, and when we came to the shabby outskirts of that city, we cried anew, “To Warsaw!” “To Prague!” “To Washington!”