You Made the Iraqis Their Scarves.

• Author: Foote, Frederick
• Position: Poem

You Made the Iraqis Their Scarves For Doctor Pat McKay When limbs are lost who stops to think of clothing thrown away Who knows the shame of sheltered girls on sudden public display? And so within the non-combatants' ward they neither prayed nor shrank from pork but showed their skin with vacant-eyed sang-froid knowing that since the world had burned alive it didn't matter. You came out of the O.R. night after night and wrote your orders just as the men would do but then, instead of clumping off to bed or getting drunk on bootleg DVDs You'd find a place no one could observe bring out an ancient Singer sewing machine and squares of silk left over from a quilt the nurses made to celebrate our work And there each night like the breath of a word You'd sew, quietly sew as the ocean weaves a reef together after a storm binding polyps and tiny fish...