I sail in my dreams,
I am dreaming of home.
~ Osama Abu Kabir, from Poem s from Guantanamo
For a Casio,
for the way its back case can
come undone, expose
the mechanism
that can be wired to a bomb.
For a Casio,
whose silver face glistened
when he washed himself for prayers.
For a Casio
the U.S. manual
labeled al Qaeda’s favored
detonation device.
For a Casio
he’d glance at, spinning the wheel
hand over hand on
his way to drop off
that one last water shipment.
Amman’s sun burning
off its hard scarred face.
For a Casio he’d got
before he was to leave
for Afghanistan.
Over tea the watch was eyed.
Digital readout
bathed the tent in green
when he rose to step outside
and pee beneath stars.
For a Casio
that set the Marines jabbering;
it was the first thing
confiscated, first
reason suspicions were raised.
It remains, plastic wrapped,
labeled evidence,
in a Guatanamo desk,
while Kabir hunkers
in detention’s night,
time stopped, his wrist’s memory
of it turning black.
David Allen Sullivan’s first book of poetry—Strong-Armed Angels—was published by Hummingbird Press in 2008. His second book, a series of poems concerning the Iraq war, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, will be published in Spr ing, 2012.