Drowning in Retreat (Kuwait, 1991)

War determines the victor
as Good versus Evil,
as God versus Allah,
as "us" versus "them,"
but when these are one
and the same, who won?
Who's to blame?
Napoleon himself surmised,

"History is a lie
agreed upon."

Did these soldiers pray
to Mohammed, or beg
or shout for mercy
over the thrum of diesel engines
sounding like surf in the desert?

Having lost the battle,
survivors hid
buried beneath the sand,
only to be bulldozed under
a front stretching over 170 miles
of dry shoreline.
Seeping into those chosen grains,
their blood
makes its own mud.

Could the prophet have heard
a sound of conscripts
screaming beneath
those granular waves,
noises muffled as throats
and lungs filled
with the smothering tide,

and they, the men not wanting
to be there, fell victim to
a new, unintended assault.