By Saber Ahmad Jazbhay

Plain in the sniperscope
little more than flesh
less than completely skeletal
a silhouette
defiantly heads
across
no man’s land
when
a missile less than
an inch
blows a hole in his chest
and like a dead leaf
he crumbles in a spiral……..

did I hear him
call out
to God
or was it a curse
to the fates that imprisoned
him
in a charnel house
for the barely living?

mahmoud
must have read about it
in his daily
mid-day briefing
remembering
to pay a visit
to the widow of yet another
martyr
but not before
having tea with ehud
and then
to the local mosque
to supplicate.

The world hardly pauses
not even to catch  its breath
or sigh