Drone

for Malalai Kakar & Malala Yousafzai


Trucks on the road haul pieces of a factory

to the factory. Past grey-white

sails on an ice blue bay.

Past a dog wearing her face all day.

*

With a linen towel of Tang-bright

fish I dry three singing bowls.

Thinking of among other things, the loss of three

million trees over last summer's vacation.

*

Reclining girl on the side- walk thinks: sky.

Thinks if men are kings here, a rose is a rose

is Arose Street, which we cross.

*

Last night I danced with the blonde while

around us you loped, fake-barking at the stars.

Soft & august, the cool moon spilling down

onto a neighbor's drive.

*

Meanwhile, women bear men who send

trucks on roads to haul pieces of a factory to the factory

until July is too
cold for wisteria to bloom.

*

Dumbass in sunglasses interviewing a survivor

says I hear you made a quick recovery.

She sighs deeply; a door

swings open.

*

Into paper mills and plastics.

Into fertilizers, scenting the breeze. Men are kings here

so explain how teak weathers until it glows.

Say how rock oil and whale

were first hunted, lit and burned.

*

Six months since last I talked to Layla who

driving the truck wears a muddy

ribbon in her hair. Marigolds in summer—

their small crowded faces echo fire.

*

Among people, the girl shot in her head by men

hidden among other men. Having lost

her dog she becomes invisible to dogs.

*

An owl flies into my mouth, my hands fly into the sun.

*

Chain of time send word of the next

exception, bomber, rose. Speak of the remote

travesty of white caps. Of yellow

helicopters in the sky.