by Rick Gray
Yes, I heard about your bombing today.
Another improvised scrap of death
Planted inside a truckload of apples.
This isn’t about your success.
It’s about apples, driven by ordinary men
into this raped and hungry city every day.
Round, delicious things glowing yellow, green, red,
A traveling circus nourishing even beggars
Quick enough to lift the fallen.
I have spied blue angels
Slip these wounded below burqas
And carry home your civilian dead
And all along the muddy roadsides
People you cannot control pile them in little pyramids
Like temples to the God you hate
Who needs no prophet
or book
Only her sweet juice
And a mouth with a few real teeth
Willing to bite down hard
and chew.
Rick Gray was a finalist for the Editor's Award at Margie. He served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and currently teaches at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul.