[Newspoetry] (no subject)

[Anne Bargar]

Headline 2/22/98

	I saw this headline today while busing tables.
	RIraqi citizens reluctant to die unnecessarily.S
	RIn a poll conducted by The News, Iraqi citizens have expressed
surprising concern over the potential loss of their property, their jobs,
and even their lives should a RsmartS bomb miss its intended target and
kill them instead.  This comes as a complete surprise to the State
Department, which has been putting forth what it thought was a widely-held
belief: that most Iraqi citizens would gladly die in an attack against
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ROur assumption has been that most Iraqis
secretly blame their own leaders for their starvation and lack of medical
care.  Furthermore, we thought that most of them believe that their oil is
truly ours.  We thought that they would gladly be blown to bits in the
name of US national interests.  We are shocked to find that this is not
the case,S a State Department spokesman was quoted as saying.
	I walk past a customer with a compliant about a lack of spiciness
that she found in her chili.  Dishes crash in the sink, nearly breaking as
they slip from wet hands back into dishwater.  I am stopped and asked as I
carry a loaded bus tub, why have we no flavorburst ice cream?  The
question is asked with such indigence that my aching arms are reminded
that they are, after all, trivial.  The woman who lifts our skimpy tips
walks in the door, much better dressed than any of us are.  I set down the
bus tub and remove the three dollars that accumulated over the last twenty
customers from their glass.  Her face, wishing to remain passive, sours
greatly in response to my action.  Taking the tub back to the kitchen,
standing in the middle of an argument, The News is on but here it is
irrelevant.  As I carry a bowl of chili back past the headline, the scent
of onions grabs the article in itUs pungent grip and crumples it (no
substance in it to hold it up), and it withers away into a tiny clump of
worthless newsprint.