For those in Guantanamo
Close enough to see
only their shadows
flickering in distant
metal cages against
prison searchlights.
Close enough to hear
the recorded call
to prayer, sounded
over loudspeakers,
crickets and crashing
surf, human voices
gathering. He could
not see, aiming his
microphone at scraps
of their singing.
If he could hear them,
would their hearts tick
like timers, soft
as plastique, hard-wired
to blow apart? If he could
see them, would he see
the ghosts of faces
he thought he might know
but not place in time?
The embers of their song
lifted from the licks
of some fire invisible
to him, untranslatable
as taps on the underground
pipes hammered by sailors
in the crippled Kursk.
Were they trying to
open a hull into certain
death? Were they saying
we can’t breathe much longer
in the depths of this sea,
and lift us back to surface?
He drove back home,
played the tapes he made
outside the complex, and heard
only the surf exploding
against rocky shore, wind
whipping the sand.
