[Newspoetry] a poem from yr aunt babs

[Robert Porter]

11:45 AM 10/7/01

Lew says "We're bombing Afghanistan as we speak," as she rings up my refill
She turns off the music and sets up an old black and white t.v.
its sound comes and goes
the president will speak about our friendship with the Afghan people
as soon as the bombing is over

being a friend of the Afghan people means
apparently
blowing up their last energy grid and
destroying all twenty of their airplanes
saying we will drop food next but never enough

Kabul alone has one million people

it means acting on unrevealed evidence
too sketchy to stand up in a court of law
skipping any formal request for extradition
it will mean hitting the wrong target
and saying it was a training camp

After the speech the music and t.v. coexist
both sounds drift together around the cafe
on the black and white screen
Peter Jennings looks like a ghost.


-yr aunt babs, whose email seems to go down in times of national crisis