Writing

Fatima’s Vigil

In a Baghdad neighborhood
Fatima holds her vigil
among the living and the dead
at the Al-Amiriya bomb shelter.

She tells anyone who'll listen about the time
she left the shelter in 1991 to visit a friend.
"I should get back to the shelter," she said,
to be with my husband and children."

"You’re always at the shelter," said her friend.
"Stay here tonight, they’ll be alright.
"Stay here tonight, they’ll be alright."

But that night, an american airplane
passed overhead and dropped two bombs
on the shelter in Fatima’s absence
wresting from her the lives
of her husband and children.

And now Fatima exists among the dead in the shelter
inviting the living into her cavernous home
of enshrined walls covered with pictures and drawings
and flash-burned outlines
of Iraqi men, women and children.

On the eve of a new war on her country
Fatima awaits the return of the american airplane.

"I should stay at the shelter
to be with my husband and children,"
Fatima says absently to anyone who’ll listen.

But she’s always at the shelter …

"Stay here tonight, we’ll be alright.
"Stay here tonight, we’ll be alright."

Dedicated to Fatima, who serves as the tour guide at the Al-Amiriya bomb shelter in Baghdad. Composed February 28, 2003 and published online at Poets Against the War and in the January 2004 issue of Disciples Peace Fellowship NewsNotes.