LOST IN IRAQ by Stephen Jarrell Williams

Never free
in the arms of the ice queen,

mopping the floor
with the back of your head,

you're grinning in ecstasy and pain,
humming that tomorrow will stay away.

You're flawed
with the war in your dreams,

your old outpost still
in the mountains of the penniless,

falling forever
into her eyes,

she keeps your stick swinging,
fingers cold,

unpromising,
multicolored in the spin of your room,

your uniforms in the closet
hanging above the sniffing rats,
they snuck in
nestled in her purse,

as she steals your nobility,
snuffs out your fire.



Published in Counterexample Poetics- 2009