The Harbinger of Death
I stand looking
across the dusty street
at the cinderblock walls of
her humble timeless dwelling
swept by desert sands in
need of a more peaceful
place to amass
and speckled by shrapnel and bullets
whose crackling sound
I can still hear
if I put my ear against the wall
the slugs lie where they dropped
like dead flies
like dead people
the rusty metallic front door
whose chipped green paint
faded long ago
sometimes the wind would rattle
I see her as she
finally comes out
clad in a black abaya
the hardness of her face
tampered by a mercurial smile
her eyes squinting against
the perfidies of the world
as she walks past drivers
hailing potential customers
blurring into a background
of people adrift in their own city.
don’t venture down those ominous
ways
I warned
don’t thread into that austere
city
the harbinger of death was here
and I heard your name called
dearly
