America's Gift to Iraq

Distant sands

Harnessed
Iraqi youth
straps tautly flush
smooth skin
scrapes white
baggy robes
flesh and harness
separate
trepidation's
clammy sweat

Patrolling soldiers'
Humvee saddled
nervous guffaws
sing fear-numbing
derision
enemy songs
forlorn

Children clad
asphalt pitch
giggles
kick-shot escapes
tedious
torturous
death odds'
exponential

Sand grains
single filed
hour glass
descent

Ingredient laden
mothers gaggle
strolling evening
meals down
asphalt pitch street

Dreaming
Thierrys
Beckhams
Peles
dusk blinded

Harness hiding
Iraqi youth
veer-merges
pointing out
shots
moves
deft angles

Consuming thoughts
occupying infidels' hands
slaughtered
parents
siblings

Humvee soldiers
roar up
asphalt pitch street's
converged restive scene
complacency elicited
casually interrupts
invasive weapons'
neighborhood mission
search and seizure

Youth led children
regale soldiers
hungry-eyed pleas
tittering cries
chocolate
candy

Mothers flock
children
shoo-shoo
home

Makeshift football
pitch confluence
boisterous glee
eruption
explodes
flesh ripping
blood splattering
bone shattering
searing flames
putrid smoke

Gathered arms
Iraqi youths'
burden borne
onus soaked
de-liberating
liberators'
invisible gift