THE ROAD BACK TO YEMEN FROM A BROOKLYN LAUNDROMAT GOES UP IN SMOKE
by Linda Lerner
separate, he asks, as he puts my laundry
on the scale. Yes, separate, I say
still . . . week after week, tries to make
this American woman understand
what it feels like, no, make me smell
the smoke of mortar & rocket fire politics
keeping him from getting his wife & daughter
everything so carefully arranged, end of
June, his graduation from college, and then . . . puff
do you see?
what I see is the road
twisting and turning in his mind
teasing him now it’s here, now it’s gone
he says of a promised cease fire;
when he speaks of his birth country
of things getting worse
I see frightened people imprisoned
in their homes being deprived of basic necessities
I see a country being raped…
I do not see his wife and daughter
he will not let me
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| Internally displaced people bathe and wash clothes in a local river close to the Al-Mazraq IDP camps, Al-Mazraq, Yemen. Source: Daily Mail |
Linda Lerner’s latest collection "Yes, the Ducks Were Real" (NYQ books) and her chapbook "Ding Dong the Bell Pussy in the Well" (Lummox Press) were published recently.