letter to a friend in Iraq, November, 2005
The events this poem was based upon were relayed to me by a former professor who had kept in touch with a friend she met at an international conference on literature. The friend was Iraqi and wrote to her after their home had been looted in early 2005.
letter to a friend in Iraq, November of 2005
you're not at all alone, even here in the States, see, my parents' friends returned from the mountains disheartend to find their cabin had been broken into, looted, and the few things of value there carried away. in your nation, it was though primary homes-not cabins of a lawyer and his wife, where they retreated to fish in June when Florida was humid, sun-baked, and the kids out of school. his fishing lures, some had been his dad's, and all were gone plus a table too fine for the cabin really but it didn't fit in after they renovated the dining room in their house. that too was gone, despite its size.
when your house was looted, it was an event worthy of that term. like LA or Chicago, there was fire in the streets. like New Orleans, the power had been out for days. you saw an American in his desert camo and called out in perfect English as to the problem yet he said sternly "ma'am, I am not the police" which was true, but there were no police that day, either. the things stolen ran a gamut of worth: flour and sugar and syrup beside your best jewels and the television. they didn't take your books-as books, like some insect or opossum, have a defense of being boring as well as heavy and worth little-except to those who love them.
I thank you for so long a letter-especially given all that's happened.
I wish I could do more: I once met Dr. Rice in the Sephora in Georgetown and she seemed quite nice and prettier in person than her press, too, but I doubt I really have any pull. It is hard to know how to respond: what do you say after a friend's house is torn apart, and your troops in some small way enabled this to happen? It's as if my dog got loose and pulled all your fresh wash from the line and rendered it to shreds. I send you a quote from Raman Mundair, and otherwise try to remind you that five or so years from now, your son will be in college-I guess in England or somewhere. Not Iraq. Things will improve with time, see.
they have to-somehow.
letter to a friend in Iraq, November of 2005
you're not at all alone, even here in the States, see, my parents' friends returned from the mountains disheartend to find their cabin had been broken into, looted, and the few things of value there carried away. in your nation, it was though primary homes-not cabins of a lawyer and his wife, where they retreated to fish in June when Florida was humid, sun-baked, and the kids out of school. his fishing lures, some had been his dad's, and all were gone plus a table too fine for the cabin really but it didn't fit in after they renovated the dining room in their house. that too was gone, despite its size.
when your house was looted, it was an event worthy of that term. like LA or Chicago, there was fire in the streets. like New Orleans, the power had been out for days. you saw an American in his desert camo and called out in perfect English as to the problem yet he said sternly "ma'am, I am not the police" which was true, but there were no police that day, either. the things stolen ran a gamut of worth: flour and sugar and syrup beside your best jewels and the television. they didn't take your books-as books, like some insect or opossum, have a defense of being boring as well as heavy and worth little-except to those who love them.
I thank you for so long a letter-especially given all that's happened.
I wish I could do more: I once met Dr. Rice in the Sephora in Georgetown and she seemed quite nice and prettier in person than her press, too, but I doubt I really have any pull. It is hard to know how to respond: what do you say after a friend's house is torn apart, and your troops in some small way enabled this to happen? It's as if my dog got loose and pulled all your fresh wash from the line and rendered it to shreds. I send you a quote from Raman Mundair, and otherwise try to remind you that five or so years from now, your son will be in college-I guess in England or somewhere. Not Iraq. Things will improve with time, see.
they have to-somehow.