You want me to forget the face of death
so that my smile will be beautiful again.
The word beautiful isn’t around anymore.
And I am only impossible.
If you thought it was that easy to forget
the way death trembled at the bombing
of booksellers, of Baghdad and bindings.
When an idea was beautiful and dangerous,
begging for safety. Or my father’s prayers
for his daughter’s pained face just before
they shut down her breathing apparatus.
I watched his eyes form the doomed edge
of whatever he was of a cloud’s downpour
before catching her last gasp of air.
I can’t smile and recall that beautiful end.