SWIRLING SANDS

by David Allen Sullivan

 

 

Underneath burqa’s
                        black is a Guns N' Roses
                                                t-shirt and tight jeans

she snakes into each
                        morning. As they pat her down
                                                at the checkpoint she

bobs her head in time
                        to Welcome to the Jungle,
                                                leaking through ear jacks.

                                                *

Didn’t sign up to guard
                        no oil ministry papers
                                                in an empty building

while motherfuckers
                        shoot to celebrate or kill.
                                                And they say this here’s

the goddamn cradle
                        of all civilizations?
                                                roads all shot to hell.

                                                *         

They emerge from holes
                        and shelled homes when the soldiers
                                                stop blindly firing

to bury the dead
                        and assist those who are caught
                                                straddling the line

between the two worlds.
                       Graves are shallow and look like
                                                hastily plowed fields.

                                                *

Aboard the US
                      NS Comfort,the doctor
                                                peels back bandages

to see a brain pulse.
                      Fissure in the skull’s narrow.
                                                This wound he can close.

Posted at the door,
                      two service men, rifles cocked
                                                in case the man bolts.

                                                *

Tracers hiss the night,
                      a hail of bullets broadsides
                                               the truck, a semi

answers. What the fuck
                      are you firing at? the Chief
                                               barks. They shot the truck.

But what you shootin’?
                     He’s got no answer. Spits chew
                                               that sizzles the sand.

                                               *

I stand like a mule
                     before this man’s M-16
                                               in my dishdasha.

Shift from foot to foot.
                    He thinks I know no English:
                                               Orders. Secure bridge.

By noon we are ten.
                    We share rumors, cigarettes,
                                               wait to be let home.

                                                *

Outgoing letters
                    catch helicopter downwash—
                                               bust the ropes that hold

them and cascade out
                    over the ocean—flurry
                                               of never heard birds.

                                                *

Outside Karbala,
                    black ash that was once a man
                                               leans against the wall

as if he’d just stopped
                    for a smoke. The eyeless sockets
                                               fill with swirling sand.

 

 

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