Dodging Hate’s Siren-Shriek
by Odin Roark

He had survived
Six months believed to have made him a man.

Today,
He only wanted his mother.

Today,
Time was running slow,
Slower,
Stopping,
Begging.

Such hopeful beginnings,
Such bestial endings,
Caked fingers bear blood,
Water too precious to remove.
As desert sand’s insistence
Makes mockery of fear’s dry heaves.

Skittering boot prints
Like zigzagging sand pipers,
Short of food,
Wary of enemies,
Making patterns so plain,
This prophetic hide and seek death dance.

Today…

Seems right—today.
Months of sand storms and fire,
Left but sun baked flotsam,
Mixed decomposing bodies of friend and foe,
Their survival charges piled high,
Making but for stumbling of boots
Across rotted bodies and limbs,
Even flies and rats now ignore.

With fingers blood-welded to weapon,
He lay down among the carnage,
Eager to know the peace,
The quiet,
The involuntary resolve,
Just for a moment,
Or two,
Just until the siren-shriek
Of an incoming missile's presence...

Just until it finds him and stops.

Not much to ask.
Not much
If anyone…
Anything…
Is listening.