Sky bright blue and white,
no sandstorm fills this air.
No one is shooting at me
again today.

On the street I find no one I know,
chalk white, in chalk-white dust, caked in black pools
of their own blood, eyes sightless.

At the farmers' market, no mortar attack this morning,
no one screams;
the square, eerily quiet.

I do not hold a friend, helpless,
murmuring meaningless reassurances
into a blackened ear, while life
leaks away;
come home with no smell of blood
on my skin, clothes, in my hair;
do not scrub
myself raw, weeping, unable
to be rid of it.

There is enough to eat,
again.
I can feed myself, unaided
still.
Can walk, on my own legs.
I do.

So many blessings, so much good fortune,
so lucky.

So why
are my lips pulled back
in this rictus
of rage?

Why this dread?

Bombing operations began today
in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates:
the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization.

oh, my people,
my people