To the Iraqi woman shot by former Army Sergeant M. L.
The film loops,
and you bleed to death again
in his arms,
this time on the sofa in his brother's house
yesterday morning on the kitchen tiles,
tomorrow on the rain-washed sidewalk
near where his ex-wife lives.
The film loops.
I don't know where you were trying to go,
but it wasn't here,
whether there were other ways you might have walked,
streets where he is not always positioned
with his gun.
You fell--what can any of us say?--among
the intentions and the accidents of his mission.
And so did he,
holding you.
He says: I wish
I had just freaking died
over there.
It's not enough.
The film loops, and again it's twilight where you died
and where he lives, day and night
about to break again
about to break again
over the gray and desperate world.
Now, for the sake of anything
that might come after,
You have to let each other go.
Electronic edition created by Megan Kipper for New Letters Digital Archive, Culminating Experience, Spring 2021