Shredded Shirts

Shredded Shirts

Hands above their rattled heads,
two men march a roiling berm --
a shredded t-shirt for a flag.
Memories of hatred fresh
as cinching ropes.
They hope Iraq's militiamen
will stay too busy with war
to massacre their infants
and their tearful wives.
City speakers echo
with their cruel demands --
Fedayeen or die deserters
in a desert punished for eternity.
Jails or shame or razor wire
everywhere they dare to look.

Barrels of guns, bricks of tanks,
a bridge in ruins -- is this goodbye
or some beginning set in gold?
They still recall our stirring presence
on their soil -- igniting riots
then the cold abandonment --
stoking fires of liberty and walking off
to sip on easy Perrier.
Confusion for a welcome mat.
Falling bombs for snooze alarms.
Survival and a moment's sleep --
that luxury beyond eclipse.
Death awaits on either side
of lines to cross.
This is a place where a man
can be right and wrong
in the same shallow breath.
The sun itself a candlewick
too gone to trust, too short to not.

Janet I. Buck

Posted over on Ariga