Poems

We are the Iraqis

The American soldiers in the helicopter throw leaflets with inked arms onto our sleeping women on the rooftops
 
We are the Iraqis
 
Daily at breakfast our mothers dish up sectarianism, we chew it until we consume our mouths
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We make iron doors for our houses so we rust behind them
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We fire when one of us dies until we kill the other
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We fight with the roosters and wipe away our blood
 
We are the Iraqis
 
At the checkpoints military dogs rub their noses against our eyes
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We plant graves in front of houses
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We tumble around the food-aid truck like a string of prayer-beads snapped at a wake
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The little coffin unites our shoulders
 
We are the Iraqis
 
The same fingers that we collected shot-casings with as children
 
now count the dead
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We don’t bring down the dried heads from park railings
 
We are the Iraqis
 
With this soap we wash our hands to eat
 
and with this same soap we wash our hands of blood
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We uproot our rotten years every day
 
stacked in rows in a mass grave
 
We are the Iraqis
 
In the summer we wait for buses under cast concrete like washed shoes
 
We are the Iraqis
 
We use weapons as pillows and blanket ourselves in Semtex
 
We are the Iraqis
 
A sleeping worm in the apple of the world