Favorite Iraqi Soldier

 Into his kit when sent to the front he had tucked 
his black three-piece suit and through night 
after night of the frightful bombing, which
not only wiped out but pragmatically entombed

his luckless comrades in a marvel of technological
decadence, he had kept the suit protected 
so that at the surrender he had stripped naked 
and slipped it on. This is when the photographer

caught him, that among the thousands of defeated
there walked one Iraqi in a three-piece suit 
who tried to express by his general indifference
that he had stumbled into all this carnage simply

by accident and was now intent on strolling away.
I am a modest banker tossed on the wrong bus.
I am a humble stockbroker who took a wrong turn. 
And he passed through the American lines

and began hitchhiking south. Did he elect
to relocate in Kuwait? Fat chance! Did he 
want the lovable Saudis as new neighbors?
Quite unlikely! What about the opportunities