From a distance

God knows how many times I have stood frozen in the hot street with rifles pointing at my crotch

& watched myself – small & impossibly thin – in the oil-black mirrors of their sunglasses.

They never take them off, not even to enter a mosque. God knows they are easy to hate.

But after the explosion when I ran with the others to look, suddenly I felt shame for all the things

I had thought. One howled, the other bled in silence, eyes naked to the sun. I bent down.

Above the smooth cheeks such a clear, pale blue! I felt as if I were looking down from heaven:

Here is our sky, soldier, here is yours. Hold on. Help will come.