1.
Salma, a pi-dog of Baghdad:

Americans are kind.
They leave blood on the streets
for us to lick,
and morsels of human flesh

stuck
to charred clothing.

They return us to our ancestors:
Wolves.

Salma's friend, pi-dog Imrana:

You don't hear and see so well
ever since the bomb went off in the neighborhood
dump where you had littered
six pups,
one-eyed, one-eared, scar- faced Salma.

3.
A stone from the streets of Baghdad speaks:

I've been cut down to size
by time and human intervention.
But not, it seems, cut down enough.
I still squeak when soles
cross me on their way
to work and battle.

Yet in the beginning
I was in earth, monumental
then dug up for a pagan temple.
The structure fell. Weeds grew on my body;
roots cracked me up. (Vegetarianism! Ha!)

I was reclaimed to be
                                   foundation of a home
                                   paving stone
                                   aqueduct cover
                                   centerpiece for an arch (my proudest moment)
                                   a stable's flooring steaming with piss
                                   back to a mirror
                                   side-walled in a mosque (o, the prayers!)
                                   fountainhead
                                  a girl's secret-whispering stone
                                  then forgotten, then picked up
                                  and cemented into a street.

But who's to care
for the story of a pebble
that's set
in a Baghdad street?

Yet… listen:
                     I'm your future.
                     Come, lie with me --
                     your bones bare
                     under Paradise's glare.