It’s over two hundred miles
from Amman, Jordan
to the Iraqi border,
The burning red sunlight
smacks you right in the face
as you travel the entire way,
Ghosts of the Ali Baba everywhere
once you get past the border checkpoints,
No passport for your soul
to get you in and out of the desert
along the Wadi El Murrah,
There are sheep here and there,
one or two robed Bedouins
off on the horizon,
You pray to find a U.S military convoy, you pray even more once you actually do,
Bombed out cars look like movie relics, like they could have been left on the moon,
Black Hawk helicopters
fly off in the distance;
black smoke an ominous sign,
Once in Baghdad I track down Hossein,
an Iraqi colleague from N.Y. who has returned,
He gives me warm soda
from an old Pepsi bottle;
we watch CNN on his satellite,
There are no more paintings
of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad,
but they say he’s still here,
I report to the Palestine Hotel,
where I’ll stay for six months
reporting for the AP,
I lie my head down in a room
where there are three Brits
and a blond Swede,
One of them says,
“I thought the war was over!”
(we hear gunfire outside),
I close my eyes so I’ll stop thinking,
stop questioning everyone and everything— myself,
I think of an old girlfriend,
a white, sparkling beach;
blue-green waves, palms, and seashells,
I can taste the blueberry
of mother’s barbecue sauce;
I dream of Saddam Hussein.
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