Portrait of Persia in the Young Century

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The actual desert, as fiercely
gorgeous as Death in sunlit copper
and sequins, but the cliché has entered
our collective soul, some bad American
movie in black and white - all dust and fear
and a thirst that can't be slaked even by blood -
warping our dreams with drab hues
that must be answered.

The hole, as long as half a football field,
bathed in corpse-light, cinematically
pale, but the party guests are clothed
in every color imaginable for contrast,
much red, much darkening purple
upon the sand.

A minimalist dance: a twitch here,
a look of profound surprise over there
as the D-9 made in America, a man
in fatigues and Shimagh to honor God
at the controls, pushes backfill, spouts
black smoke against desert-blue sky. The party
continues in the dark, the mute
revelers now playing games:

who can turn to bone quickest, remember
their name longest. Then, who can dream
the worse revenge and get the message
through to the children still above ground
in the bleak telepathy the massacred
learn down here, in a trench in the actual
desert, in the utter night as cold as any gone before.