HAFED BESAR

A child-soldier with thistles growing in his eyes

Hafed Besar learned shooting in the desert.

There were no more scavenging birds to kill.

Nor enemies.

And sniping on stone

did not produce the blood he lusted for.

Now,

with one leg and a hollow eye

Hafed Besar,

a child of dusty curses and flies,

wobbles on a crutch,

plodding along.

He is left with the gun

he tore from a corpse,

that day he faced his loneliness,

listening to voices die in his bowels.

Translated by the author