Morning in the Sunni Triangle
The sun rose over Ramadi: a pink eye,
an industrial fire. Just off the highway
to Baghdad, we waited behind a hatchback
for my Chechen friend. My contact,
an Iraqi, helped me pack the car
with all the necessary items, but nothing
behind the seat caught my eye; my friend,
nowhere in sight. The man stiffly
mused over a piece of paper, a checklist,
making sure I had everything I needed
and that I was, in fact, following Iraqi law.
The car, a beat-up old ‘70s-era compact,
was a dingy white, the color of all foreign cars
that one sees in old spy movies. He kept
eyeing the piece of paper to make sure
I would be okay. He had, I felt, nothing
but my best interest in mind. Before we
were about to leave, my friend appeared,
darker and shorter than I had remembered.
We exchanged jovial pleasantries;
we laughed nervously, kicked at the sand.
Before we left, my Iraqi host wanted to make
sure I had a gun. He said I not only needed protection
but also that it was the law. According to Iraqi law,
one had to have a gun to travel. He threw
a clear plastic bag at me, which I caught.
In it, I found a toy gun. I couldn’t even
get my finger in between the trigger
and the trigger guard. The Iraqi
assured me that I would need nothing
else besides the gun to travel.
July 22, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Poetry about war seems to be a theme. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I think that it puts things in a different perspective. It personalizes the war. I’m glad that you are including it here.
July 23, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Yeah, about that: I just figured that since the title of the blog is an explicit reference to foreign policy, this poem (and the other one I posted earlier) fit in. I’ve got a couple of others that are political. I might post them if their themes become topical.