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The digital map on the wall
displays the American wars
in colors:
Iraq in purple
Syria in yellow
Kuwait in blue
Afghanistan in red
Vietnam in green.
The war
on the map
is beautiful
smart
and colorful.
Copyright © 2017 by Dunya Mikahil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 19, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
If I had one more day
I would write a love poem
composed of one word
repeated like binary code.
I’ll multiply it by the number
of days that passed
without saying it to you
and I’ll add the days
Through your eye
history enters
and punctured helmets pour out.
Frequent tremors occur in your land
as if invisible hands shake your trees day and night.
They blockaded you and banished the oxygen from your water,
leaving the hydrogen atoms to quarrel with one another.
Shouldn't the nations be disturbed by the face of a child
who shuts her mouth and eyes
in surrender to UN resolutions?
But they only opened their own mouths slightly,
smaller than a bud,
as if yawning or smiling.
In Iraq,
after a thousand and one nights,
someone will talk to someone else.
Markets will open
for regular customers.
Small feet will tickle
the giant feet of the Tigris.
Gulls will spread their wings
and no one will fire at them.
Women will walk the streets
without looking back in fear.
Men will give their real names
without putting their lives at risk.
Children will go to school
and come home again.