POETRY
	Issue 03, Summer 2008
Clogged Gutters
Dina Omar

Yusif Imran thinks
people who drive planes into buildings
should get real jobs.

Yusif has olive skin;
his wife Nead likes to place her arm
next to his cheek;
compare the shades of brown;
slide her lips across his thick eyebrows;
pinch his red cheeks.

Pieces of Yusif’s olive flesh are strewn
into the Baghdad sidewalk
the same one his Daughter
Zanib colors on with chalk.

She sketches pretty fireworks that explode
Her mom says steal birds drop them from the sky
Mom braids her hair every night before bed;
she has pink cotton pajamas;
Zanib does not drink a lot of milk--
Since the 1980’s No Iraqi does;
So Zanib’s bones are kinna weak
Her bones are now charred into the
Baghdad Street

Nead,
Zanib’s mom,
Yusif’s wife has long dark black Arabian hair;
He likes to twist the black strands
around his
finger.
Yusif kisses her neck bone before she sleeps
she rubs chamomile oil behind her ears
because he likes it
Yusif must miss

her long dark black Arabian hair
leaves a stank
in the Baghdad air
for days
when it
burns--

Its cleaned up
by a guy named Steve
with a broom and a hose

You and I and Uncial
pay for
Yusif’s flesh
Zanib’s bones
Nead’s hair

Steve swipes and pours it into
the badly filtered Baghdad gutters
we’ve clogged.