Peering just above the berm,
her finger on the trigger,
she spies a fast-approaching force,
more powerful and bigger.

Squinting through her rifle sights,
she takes a steady bead,
while trying hard to focus
on the soldiers in the lead.

She squeezes off a burst of fire
from her AK-47,
sees Russian forces now reduced
by ten – perhaps eleven.

But now her spot’s been compromised –
must move to higher ground,
she raises up her wire-rimmed specs
and takes a look around.

Climbing to her feet,
she holds her rifle like a crutch,
her aged body smarts a bit,
but it doesn’t hurt too much.

Somewhere north of eighty,
and she’s still not looking bad –
but she’s dead inside from losing
everything she ever had.

She crawled up an embankment,
over rocks and thorny sticks,
opened up her bag and pulled out
bottles stuffed with wicks.

She filled them up with gasoline
and some chunks of Styrofoam –
a burning goo, that when it blew,
would burn right to the bone.

Perched upon a walking bridge
that spans the street below,
she sits and waits impatiently
for the Russian troops to show.

Soon they came, like hunted game –
a tank and a pair of trucks,
armed for bear, but unaware,
they were all just sitting ducks.

An open hatch, a lighted match
and down the bottles flew –
she bathed the caste with shattered glass
and flames that stuck like glue.

One by one, they tried to run,
to escape the fiery blaze,
but thanks to granny’s sticky mix,
they’d likely burn for days.

A final crack of rifle fire
would end their cries of pain,
an act she thought befitting –
just a tad bit more humane.

As soon as none were stirring
and the peace of death ensued,
she left the grizzly aftermath
with a sense of rectitude.

Back in town, she hunkered down,
obscured from pending trouble,
to bear the night by candlelight,
in a hold beneath the rubble.

Laying in her weathered cot,
she weeps for those she lost,
gently touching photographs
the invading soldiers tossed.

It fueled the restitution
that has overwhelmed her will,
a giant hole a thousand souls
won’t be enough to fill.

The dawn will bring another day,
in her quest for compensation –
a message for Goliath
from a little Davey nation.