Poppies

She watched from the mountain as they swept through the fields, burning flowers in systematic sweeps. They wore camouflage, their faces in black shields, metal tubes spraying fire protruding from gloved hands, robots fulfilling cold orders. Her father, hunching and shrinking more each day, explained, we live off the land as our ancestors did, but in distant places, people kill each other, themselves for opium. Pink and white flowers, fields of delicate linens, collapsed in flame and ashes. Why destroy something so beautiful, she wondered. She lay supine on a grass patch, mouthless doll on her chest, watched black smoke drift like flowing water toward other mountains. Entranced, breathing in fear, she couldn’t look away.