An Intimate War

After reading Scarred and Weary, an Afghan force wonders: What is Peace? Mujib

Mashal, New York Times, 2.28.20.

Holed up in a hilltop outpost
chained by a war raging
since before we were born.

What we live isn't life.

The last explosion still
rings; scarred, missing
finger, leg.

Veterans in their early twenties.

We are sons with heart
tattoos earned by the gun,
killed by the gun. We lost

our easy way home.

During a truce we build:
barriers, trenches,
sniper blinds.

Our mother brings dried fruit, embroidered tunics.

I share tea with a local elder;
find out he's Taliban.
The other side?

My countrymen, my neighbors.

I have lost more men fetching water.