The War in the Gulf

The movie in the morning shows us

the roads, the rows of buses

black, flattened in still circles of ash.

.

You thought you could get out but

every path burned. You thought you were

going home.

You thought you were moving to a new house.

.

But this is the century of Paul

Fussell and Pat Buchanan.

This is the century of sons without

lovers. The lost are writhing in the sand.

.

This is the century of forensic science.

.

The sun shudders under the amount of midnight it carries.

A bright row of teeth smiles up at us from the dust.

Look out the window of the bus: the buildings fly forward.