Simple Flesh

On the occasion of potential parallel civil wars in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, and of continuing civil conflicts on the continent of Africa (December, 2006)

Let’s wave the yellow flag
of caution. Let’s utter a handshake
or kiss the splintering faith and see
what the world holds
before it empties into the muscle of despair,
into camps gone awry,
into clusters of appetite.

Call them anger, call them fist,
call them blood and flight and flimsy
skin and bones. Call them simple flesh
playing to the same old orchestra of mourning,
to the requiem for fallen names
forgotten by this shapeless wind,
this indifferent house.

Published in The Georgetown Review