WEBVTT

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Before I left Iraq, I wrote
this poem sitting in a bunker.

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We'd already given our
vehicles to the incoming unit.

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I didn't even have a bullet.

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That was just fine.

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We gave all our stuff
to the next unit,

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and we're just waiting
for a plane out.

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So this poem is written,
oddly enough, already

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sort of looking back,
but it was actually

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written inside that bunker.

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It's called "Night In Blue."

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At 7,000 feet and looking back,
running lights blacked out

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under the wings and America
waiting, a year of my life

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disappears at midnight.

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The sky, a deep viridian.

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The house lights
below, small as match

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heads burned down to embers.

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Has this year made
me a better lover?

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Will I understand something
of hardship, of laws?

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Will a lover sense this
in my kiss or touch?

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What do I know of
redemption or sacrifice?

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What will I have to say of the
dead, that it was worth it?

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That any of it made sense?

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I have no words to speak of war.

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I never dug the
graves in Tal Afar.

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I never held a mother
crying in Ramadi.

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I never lifted my friend's body
when they carried him home.

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I have only the shadows under
the leaves to take with me.

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The quiet of the desert.

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The low fog of Balad.

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Orange groves with ice
forming on the rinds of fruit.

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I have a woman crying
in my ear late at night

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when the stars go dim.

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Moonlight and sand is
a resonance of the dust

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of bones and nothing more.

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