Lisa Suhair Majaj

Warbreak

Outside the U.S. embassy, barbed wire imprisons everything:
empty lot with its chant of wildflowers
tired shadows of olive trees, broken sky.

Memory flaps like a bat in the attic.
We’ve been here before: war and coffee,
full-color photos in the glossies.

Only this time they’re calling them
“decapitation strikes.”
Every war needs a bit of variety.

Low sun flares its crimson light
across the land. It will rise again tomorrow,
vigilant and weary as hope.