o earth

(Dzhokhar)

Your spinal injury

is that

of the spine of the earth

in its solitude,

your loneliness

your fear

A city frightened

by the most frightened

hidden in the belly

of a boat

in the night of gunshots

helicopters

and ghosts

The ghosts at Guantanamo

pale shadows

of what they were,

full human beings

their humanity denied

The action

that cannot be undone

on that fateful

mid-April afternoon

the blasts

the dead

the maimed

Bodies dismembered

and a little child’s

limpid eyes

beautiful smile

smiling no more

or doing it forever

All’s on the screens

all over

yet there is no return

another dead,

then yet another

your own brother falls

and it’s he,

his dying body,

cracking under the tires

The thought of his strong manners

is now the cold uneasy

intimacy of death

of all gone wrong

trembling inside the boat,

a trapped bloody animal

even as you keep fighting

shooting to the end

A nation frightened

by the most frightened

too easily forgetting

the prisoners on hunger strike

at Guantanamo

force-fed,

the ultimate insult

to human dignity,

the ultimate violence

Forgetting the children

of Yemen and Waziristan

killed and dismembered

in aerial strikes,

whose eyes were also clear

whose smiles were honest

and those who remain

forever terrorized

Then perhaps a plea

is in order

dictated by logic, not ideology:

no nation is best and greatest,

no life more or less worthy,

there is nothing to celebrate

until dignity is restored.

O earth, until then

all wounds stay

                                                                                    New York, April 21, 2013