Other June Submissions, Pointe, Hopper

dandelion

oh gentle breezes blow
soft upon this downy head
that doesn't know
that it is dead

---Joyce Pointe

Three Thousand Dollars

Not much in the news these days

so many other troubles

gushing up

so many prisoners dispersed!

the notorious facility sinks

from neglect to oblivion.

Some, of course, will never be able to forget,

for example, Murat Kurnaz,

who will perhaps one day be able to weep,

who will perhaps send Mr. Rumsfeld a tear-stained letter

saying, “I am sorry to have given you nothing

for your three thousand dollars and five years of trouble.”

Now that Murat is free,

perhaps he will travel again,

for example, to Pakistan, land of his abduction,

and see what the Pakistanis did with that three thousand.

Did they plough it right back into abductions?

Or did they perhaps open a school,

and then, perhaps,

Murat can tell us what they teach there.

---Deanna Hopper