for Malalai Kakar & Malala Yousafzai
Trucks on the road haul pieces of a factory
to the factory. Past grey-white
sails on an ice blue bay.
Past a dog wearing her face all day.
*
With a linen towel of Tang-bright
fish I dry three singing bowls.
Thinking of among other things, the loss of three
million trees over last summer's vacation.
*
Reclining girl on the side- walk thinks: sky.
Thinks if men are kings here, a rose is a rose
is Arose Street, which we cross.
*
Last night I danced with the blonde while
around us you loped, fake-barking at the stars.
Soft & august, the cool moon spilling down
onto a neighbor's drive.
*
Meanwhile, women bear men who send
trucks on roads to haul pieces of a factory to the factory
until July is too
cold for wisteria to bloom.
*
Dumbass in sunglasses interviewing a survivor
says I hear you made a quick recovery.
She sighs deeply; a door
swings open.
*
Into paper mills and plastics.
Into fertilizers, scenting the breeze. Men are kings here
so explain how teak weathers until it glows.
Say how rock oil and whale
were first hunted, lit and burned.
*
Six months since last I talked to Layla who
driving the truck wears a muddy
ribbon in her hair. Marigolds in summer—
their small crowded faces echo fire.
*
Among people, the girl shot in her head by men
hidden among other men. Having lost
her dog she becomes invisible to dogs.
*
An owl flies into my mouth, my hands fly into the sun.
*
Chain of time send word of the next
exception, bomber, rose. Speak of the remote
travesty of white caps. Of yellow
helicopters in the sky.
