Detainee No. 151362

                    " They said we will make you wish to die
                            and it will not happen..."
                      -Ameen Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362

Baghdad Correctional facility, 9 a.m.
two thousand and four
doors open and sunlight dapples
mops and suds hit peeling floors
Jaheed wakes up, leg still broken
maybe broken a little more, last night.

Taps hiss on, ice gushes out
welts bleed crystal trickles and
in the tiny toilet break
from places no one wants to look
come photos, faces, delicate transient
distorted, my mother, this is my brother, here is
my son. 'Move on, hurry up, you shitheads, hurry up
come on.'

Ameen is
unlucky
today,they call him up at lunchtime to play
and pour boiling water into the wound in his side
one guy laughs. This guy wants favour, this guy wants
slices of a different pie, a different flavour this guy has nothing to tell
but wishes he had. Ameen is lucky today.
Burns heal. Missing limbs never do,
and missing ears tend not to.
They told him his wife would be ashamed to see him beg,
to see him cry, another guard slaps his shoulder and says
she would be ashamed, sure thing, I'd rape her if she was
here.

Lunchtime the guards don't seem to notice
someone missing, like they didn't
yesterday, the day before
in Cell Block A a body rots. Who knows who it is
who cares? When dead, they aren't of use
anymore. (He died of pain and body positions
of terror, arrested without trial for -
is there a God who knows
for what?)

Bush says there is Distinction
there is a definite Definition
between torture and degradation
And there is moral faultline between the lawless
and the simply disgusting,
between the inhuman and entrusting dirty work
to dirty men, and letting them sweep up.

Oklahoma, 4 pm
two thousand and four
James Inhofe thinks that
moral outrage is morally outrageous
it's justice: no less, no little bit more
they are insurgents, murderers
Blue american blood stains foreigner hands
God gives James Inhofe the knowlege to know
who is guilty, without trial
and authority over who lives or dies
and the right to rip apart human lives with
hot water, and brown paper bags
and  suffocating flags and pork and alcohol
and electricity, digital cameras
inanimate ephemera of our lives
Give me an atomic bomb
give me water, racist songs
I give you death, I give you blame
I give you the human race.