war

Two seats away, my father watched
the tenor study the world that rumbled
parallel to his window: crumbling

“When they came to camp, they asked my friend Abdi
if he was ready to join the militia. He said, no.

In the placid lean of an arid summer, in the lingering
snarl of pit latrines, the sharp barbs of the acacia,
in the opaque eyes of the girl whose fingers frenzy

“As you can see the camps are overpopulated,
and the small parts in between, if somebody
vanishes, getting to them is like a reunion date