the casualty collection center Doc High is marking out

in ceiling fans, aisle 15. Wounded Iraqis with IVs

sit propped against boxes as 92 sample Paradiso fans

hover over in a slow revolution of blades.

The forklift driver over-adjusts, swinging the tines

until they slice open gallons and gallons of paint,

Sienna Dust and Lemon Sorbet and Ship’s Harbor Blue

pooling in the aisle where Sgt Rampley walks through –

carrying someone’s blown-off arm cradled like an infant,

handing it to me, saying, Hold this, Turner,

we might find who it belongs to.

Cash registers open and slide shut

with a sound of machine guns being charged.

Dead soldiers are laid out at the registers,

on the black conveyor belts,

and people in line still reach

for their wallets. Should I stand

at the magazine rack, reading

Landscaping with Stone or The Complete

Home Improvement Repair Book?

What difference does it make if I choose

tumbled travertine tile, Botticino marble,

or Black Absolute granite. Outside,

palm trees line the asphalt boulevards,

restaurants cool their patrons who will enjoy

fireworks exploding over Bass Lake in July.

Aisle number 7 is a corridor of lights.

Each dead Iraqi walks amazed

by Tiffany posts and Bavarian pole lights.

Motion-activated incandescents switch on

as they pass by, reverent sentinels of light,

Fleur De Lis and Luminaire Mural Extérieur

welcoming them to Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,

aisle number 7, where I stand in mute shock,

someone’s arm cradled in my own.

The Iraqi boy beside me

reaches down to slide his fingertip in Retro Colonial Blue,

an interior latex, before writing

T, for Tourniquet, on my forehead.

Howl Wind

I see people riding on shrieking horses,
steering clouds of sparkbelching fires
on their way to flame life out of you

MAHD AL-AADIYYA (4000 BCE)

Launched from its tube, the mortar round

accelerates to the apogee of its flight,

rising fast to what the gunners call

the high angle of hell, the round

suspended over the city lights below,

where any one of us might find ourselves

deep within the very last day of our life,

but wholly unaware of the fact – unaware

that the steel-hard visitations of death

hang from the heavens above,

and if there’s someone we would kiss

goodbye, or a few words we’d rather share

than leave unspoken, then now is the time,

because just as missiles were hurled in fire

from catapults of old, a mortar round

howls a night wind over the city,

and just where it lands

we will see.

Aubade: Layover in Amsterdam

My lover turns in the California bedroom’s

watery dark, arching her back from that slow

smooth glissando of heat within flesh,

our bodies rising on coiled springs

as if riding a wave of tension,

the room beneath us fading, my head leaning back,

eyes closing to the bright points of light,

my mouth filling with a long vowel