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