September 4, 2015Martin OttClusters

In the harried stores of Baghdad,

products are leaping from shelves,

canned goods and baked beans,

anti-diarrheals for drinking water

that needs to be boiled and valium

to calm children from the angry

man pounding down their walls.

One woman purchases an umbrella

to carry her like Mary Poppins

into florid dreams or to protect her

from raining shrapnel, not shards,

but the human blood it sprays.

Her son buys a brick to build

a castle with, her husband trades

cigars from a postponed wedding

for a bouquet of lilies of the valley

because his family needs to remember

some things fall slowly to the earth.

No one can explain her mother,

who slips a record from its sleeve,

and spins in the streets, her player

broken, but the music of her life

bubbling out. A few soldiers smile

at her and tap their toes as they

carry off the shelves for a barricade,

and the family leaving the store

prays the angry man will leave

before the last petal has fallen.