Challenging Poetry

Liechtenstein: Swiss Invasion, 2007

one would think
the country small enough
miss, but armies
are sometimes
one hundred seventy men
trying to figure out
how to use a compass—
because none
can bear to stop for directions—
that accidentally invade a mile
then turn around
and go home.

line count: 12

Author's Note ▶︎

For a little country, a lot of things caught my interest. For example, the police force is only 125 members big (I think there are more police in my city than in that entire country) and there are more companies than citizens. Also, for their national holiday, the prince opens his castle and invites all the citizens for a party (which I think is amazing, again, I wouldn't want to put all the people in my city in one park--our population is about 20 times Liechtenstein's), but the story that caught my imagination was in 2007, some soldiers on maneuver from the Swiss National Army accidentally invaded almost a mile before they realized what they'd done and turned around. Which is understandable but also really funny to me. So, that's what I wrote about.