just a scene from every day life – haven’t got it perfect yet.  I’ll put it away for a while and see…

 The soldier before me at the pharmacists

shrugs his M16 further back on his shoulder 

as he takes his prescription out of his fatigues

and hands it over the counter.

Mahmud examines the paper and says,

“It must really hurt, but I’m not sure we have

a cream with that degree of intensity.”

The meticulous pharmacist and the casual trooper

drop their voices and move closer together.

I can’t even hear that they whisper.

My turn is next, old-lady prescriptions

stocking up for the next 3 months.

“Do you really want all of this at once?” he asks

as if he fears I’m going to binge and kill myself.   

I realize that I’m all disheveled and sweaty,

Perhaps seem even demented, and not in control

and he probably doesn’t even recognize me

from before the war.

                                                The war.

I had forgotten for a time that there is a backdrop

to this scene, a screen behind us and a divide

between that makes even the simplest of encounters

obscene