Chevalier, your soldiers aren't so sure

of your command: you told them

that you came to bring a sword;

when they draw theirs, you holler reprimands.

You can't settle on an enemy:

to you, the uniforms all look the same,

bachelor-patched, stitched scattershot

when there are any scraps and any thread.

Although you speak of every skirmish

like it might be your last stand, your recruits

grow restless waiting for the charge;

while you sleep, they raise alarums in your name.

Incensed, you wrench the sabers and the carbines

from their fists, then hatchet the limbers,

slap the pack and cannon horses free.

Wondering why they bothered to enlist,

your troops disband, leaving you alone,

aField, with nothing but their surplus gear,

their cookfires snuffed and smudged into the mud,

and their galloping adversaries, whose flesh

is grass. You love the grass, and every nail

in every hoof that rips it from the earth,

in which you sink your sword, smiling at your coup,

your last and best-laid stratagem.

You've lost, once and for all. That pleases you.