DROWNING IN RETREAT

War determines the victor
as Good versus Evil,
as God versus Allah,
as "us" against "them,"

but when these are one
and the same,
who won?

Did these soliders pray to Allah,
beg or scream for mercy
over the thrum of diesel engines
sounding like surf
in the desert?

Losing the battle,
survivors hid, buried in the grains,
only to be bulldozed under
a front of sand stretching
over 170 miles
of parched shoreline:

Could the Prophet have heard a sound
as conscripts screamed
beneath granular waves,
the noise muffled as sand filled their
throat and lungs,
and they,
the men not wanting to be there,
fell victim
to a new, unintended
form of assault.