A Night in Hospital

A Taliban fighter, staring, drugged,

dragged wounded from the desert fight,

hangs his head against the bed and won’t look away.

He touches himself while I turn my back

and fake sleep on my side.

I shut my eyes.

Drinking is hard. Fluid drips from an IV hooked to my arm.

Rustle and pump beneath the covers, I hear the Talib

and his one free hand getting a slow start on himself

until a medic walks by and yells –

Knock that shit off.

Fever comes and goes, then night falls for us all.

Little Afghan girl in the far corner, caught

in the same fight as the Taliban, whimpers,

clutching her stomach wound and donated doll.

All I have is appendicitis.

Lying there, feeling dumb, no choice

but to listen and wait for the medics to come give her another dose,

I try to steel myself against her voice, thin as soup,

to keep balanced on the knife edges of sleep.

But the visuals keep running a loop –

that Taliban fighter, cuffed one-handed in the bed to my right.

He fixes my face in his emaciated gaze. Jackknifing

beneath the sheets, he gets himself off, then drools

blood into a bucket.