an unfinished poem
he came from a house
where light hadn’t been,
a hole of poverty
in the depths of the north.
the ghetto where he grew
brought him madness.
at school he kept
apart and was silent.
his eyes stared with fury.
early on he dressed
in clothes of the fanatics.
his religion came with the gun
and the loathing of beauty.
he nibbled the koran
with dreams of death.
he watched politicians
grow fat while his mother
rotted in the vile hovels
where dogs ate the corpses
of those who had died poor
and unknown. the fervid
sun ruined his mind.
he joined a sect and prayed
with a jihadi’s gun
always by his side.
when the leader
of his sect was killed
he disappeared.
no one saw him for years.
in his absence girls grew up
and dreamed of school.
the ghettoes were rotting.
schools were spreading.
girls learned to read
and count and think
and dream and soon
measure the lies.
when he returned he’d
changed out of all form.
took to murder,
blowing up streets
where the christians lived.
he grew bold. ammunitions
came to him from secret
places. again the north
held the nation’s fate,
born from a distant dream.
in the tall grass girls
chanted their songs
in the long shadows.