<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">An Eye for an Eye</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-size: 14px;">“God’s away on business.” Tom Waits</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We are prisoners of war.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">We sleep on the concrete floors</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">of our cells in the uniforms</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">we were wearing when captured.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">No blankets.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Cells are emptied almost daily.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">I ask the guard who speaks English,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">where are they taken.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">He says, “You kill us, we kill you.”</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">“Does that mean we are winning the war?”</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">In midafternoon of the second </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">day without food, we are stripped </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">of our uniforms and marched naked </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">through the countryside to be lined up</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">along the edge of a bulldozed trench.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">As the bulldozer idles,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">the 19-year-old to my right</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">collapses to his knees, I bend </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">down and help him to his feet.</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Beads of sweat on his forehead,</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">trembling all over, a med student</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">who will never have a practice.</span><br><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Before the spray of bullets </span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">riddles our bodies, one last thought:</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Will my daughter ever experience</span><br><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">a birth besides her own?</span><br><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></div><div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>- Steve Trenam</div></div></body></html>