Rain

This evening, Afghan guards in their towers

come down for rain, barefoot like boys

laughing and throwing their hats,

rifles slung pointed down,

hot gravel caught in a downpour

that sends up dust in waves,

bathing our feet brown.

Plastic bags snap, flapping on the wire

and half-eaten apples get left, abandoned for rain

along the sandbagged tops of the wall.

All across the city it pours.

And me in my room on my last night,

shaking out my scarves, packing my clothes,

burning down my stores of brown sugar incense.

I watch its smoke drift out my door.

Watch the men out in the compound, laughing,

as it pours, rain flying up around their feet.

In my room with the screen door ajar,

I’m letting all the mosquitoes in,

staggering wet and dusty-backed,

incense dwindling

down to ash.

Afghanistan, on my last night –

rain so hard it danced.