November 1, 1993

Intravenous needles pour liquid food

Into breathing skeletons

Lying on coarse mats

In a darkened room.

Stiff with the horror, flies on my skin.

The stench traces miseries through my nose and I resent my’own body

For noticing this discomfort.

With now, a mother:

Whose last remaining child sits with us. But in unnatural stillness:

I speak in Somali.

I quiver, her words like splinters. Her agony a rough bark

against my nerves, newly exposed. My tears before her dry eyes

Shame me bitterly

By my body's ability to spare them.

Still later, we caught in crossfire

als gunmen in doorways shoot shadows In the bloody twilight.

Macho youth, too numbed by death

To value life, or see their crime.

The smell of powder strokes their rage.

On the morning I ride

With the collectors of

Overnight dead.

Lifting corpses, by hundreds

From hospitals and feeding centers.

after the first stop I do not continue,

The bodies are so tiny. JAbE

Credit for this piece is deserving to: IAN, for having made the trip, and having written about it in ‘Vogue, Dec./92. ‘ From her experiences I have shamelessly intuited and extracted these images and feelings, both with and without evidence. Both the ideas and the title have been lifted, respectfully, from her article.

The Other Press

~ YOU'RE THE ONE. AREN'T YOu? *

HER QUESTION CONFUSED ME TRICKED ME

IGNITED MY SOUL.

YET ALL | COULD 00 WAS STARE IN THE DRUNKEN STUPOR OF MY SILENCE.

HER EYES...

BLU?

GREEN?

BLACK AND BLUE. TRANSPIXED ON THE DESIRE TO TELL HER AND LET HER KNOW.

” PUGK OFF. *

WAS ALL THAT SPAT OUT OF MY TEETH.

THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

JERIMATH JOHN CANGIA