The Tournament

When she let her sheep into the alfalfa
when he choked ditches in a drought
and when war began over a dropped hanky
didn’t they know the sheep would die in pain
that almond orchards would wither, and
that the assembled mass with their weapons
would orphan children and adults alike?
How do men and women move along,
blinkered, a filmy pouch over thoughts,
never seeing what their minds could see?
The determinable outcomes are available.
One will be knocked off his horse, while
another not. One will die of embarrassment
or head injury. The other will die later.