RONALD WALLACE
PHOTO FROM LIBERIA
A piece of leg, with mummified skin,
bronze, mahogany. Where the foot had been,
a dirty sock, looking for all the world
as if it still contained a foot. Curled
like fingernail clippings, ribs scatter
the available light in the patterns
of a body: pubis, vertebrae, the smear
of what was once the other leg, fear
in the deep eye sockets of the skull,
jaw agape as if still trying to call
out, lying on its side, and pinned
there by some unseen alien hand.
The dirt and gravel road a dull montage
of mottled brown and green camouflage,
the earth’s fatigues. As if asleep,
at intervals, in blank repose, one heap
of bones after another. A white shred
of underwear, a blue robe—the dead’s
preposterous clothes. On the airstrip,
flashing their fleshy hand and lip,
likewise camouflaged in brown and green,
soldiers, laced with ammo, machine
guns pointed at the wide, indifferent sky,
supremely undisturbed, as if to die
was singularly uninteresting, stare
out at us, serene. Arrested, we stare
back at them from our safe country far
away. Or maybe not so far.
