Hearing from God

I’m off by myself, stealing moments in the shade of a wall,

thumbing through books and last year’s magazines,

celebrity pregnancies that have come and gone, perfume samples

ripped from the seams. Things from another life.

Then you arrive, restless and disgruntled,

talking shit about your ex-wife –

how she’s fucking crazy, how the sex was no good,

how she won’t move out of your place.

It’s all trivial compared to our larger hurts –

like the four we just lost in Panjwayi.

We won’t know who they are until the next of kin

take over the dead and the news finally names a face.

Only then do we really know.

It’s a dread that grips the camp.

When the medevac choppers pass overhead

and the medics abandon their breakfast, sadness

strikes me, not just because of our injured –

inbound on the helipad, broken-backed and struggling to breathe –

but because you’re still holding down my books,

shouting above the page flap and rotor din

that your ex is a kook, telling you she won’t leave

until she hears from God.