The title, "Strategic," sets a cold, calculating tone, and the poem's short lines read like fragments of a briefing or a plea. The speaker addresses someone, perhaps a leader or a public voice, and asks them to "wait with us" in the uneasy space between "good and bad propositions." Nothing is settled here. The choices are already suspect, and the speaker seems tired of being asked to pick among them.
The middle lines hold a small spark of hope. Anger becomes "ash," and a wound becomes "a green light," which suggests pain being turned into permission to go ahead. That could be healing, or it could be a justification for action. The poem leaves it open. The last two lines are blunter. "Do we open every hole" and "shall the poor have war again" are questions without answers, and the second suggests that ordinary people usually pay for decisions made in the name of strategy. The mood is anxious, weary, and quietly angry.