To Market

A short preface to this poem is in order, I believe. The main character, if you will, is a widowed, young Iraqi mother living in Baghdad during the worst violence of the civil war and occupation. It is about the horror she faces on a normal trip to the local outdoor market. She is just trying to get food and other necessary goods for herself and her children, but a suicide bomber packed among the civilians sows chaos soon after she arrives.

While atrocities like this do not happen as often now as they did in past years, they do still occur. There is a kind of low-level violence that can be compared directly to the 15 year civil war in Lebanon in terms of lethality. Iraq is still a terribly violent place by world historical standards, but things are not nearly as bad as they were a couple of years ago.

This relative calm has mainly settled in because ethnic cleansing has been almost completely achieved, most importantly in Baghdad, but also throughout Iraq. The different sects are separated into fortified neighborhoods, many in Baghdad surrounded by high blast walls. The US has also successfully bribed many Sunni tribal leaders (known as the Sons of Iraq or the Sunni Awakening Councils) into supporting American efforts against al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has reduced the suicide bombings - al-Qaeda's favored tactic for stoking the fires of sectarian violence.

How much longer the Sons of Iraq continue to fight against other Sunnis and not against the US or, most importantly, the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, remains to be seen. The US or the Iraqi government must continue to pay them until and unless they are given some kind of legitimate role in the government, which the Shiite leaders are very reluctant to do. The provincial elections at the end of this month will be the first elections the Sunnis participate in en masse and will result in new power dynamics, possibly undermining al-Maliki's legitimacy if his coalition does poorly.

Really, the armed factions (a.k.a. everybody - every political group must have a militia [or an army] to survive in Iraq) are just waiting for the US to leave so that things can really be settled and the true power of each group can be determined. The longer the US stays, the longer this is put off, but it has to happen eventually. The only question is whether it will happen relatively peacefully (through the rise and fall of coalitions and other political wrangling), or whether the resulting violence will make 2006 look like a good year for the ordinary Iraqi.

Without further ado, here is the poem.

Feet swift,
Head down,
Fists balled,
Eyes averted,
Teeth grinding,
I walk to the market.
My family must eat.

Not harassed today,
I wore the proper garb,
And moved quickly,
But not too quickly.
Took the right route,
Crossed the right streets,
Whispered my prayers,
And made it to the square,
So that my family may eat.

Among the other women,
Among the children,
Among the old men,
Among the animals,
I weave and bargain,
Carrying the things that,
Will allow my family to eat.

My hand extends out,
I am trying to pay,
But there is a roar,
For just a brief moment,
And now I am deaf,
Except for a ringing;
Mosquitoes in my ears,
As I am jerked through space.

The world is in chaos,
As the brief moment expands.
My feet can find no ground,
My eyes can make no sense,
My body is in no pain,
Until I suddenly stop,
Grasping in vain for what I held.

Now I can feel the piercing wounds,
Now I see the carnage-strewn ground,
And the bodies I lie among, but smoke burns my eyes.
Now I can hear only faintly, muffled,
Screams wafting in through great walls,
Of stone and cries miles away, but pain wracks my head.
I am crumpled and I can taste the blood,
Pooling in my mouth.

A boy crouches over me,
Fiercely searching my eyes.
He sees I am not his mother,
And so he hurries away,
To turn over corpses.
One consolation I now have:
That I will not live for years,
To be haunted by the child’s face.

Though, I am left with one thought,
That contains horror to match his:
Now how will my family eat?