Ways to Count the Dead
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“Keeping track of the Iraqi death toll isn’t the job of the United States,” astudent said, “and besides, how would we count the dead?”
Take their limbs strewn about the streets— multiply by a thousand and one.
Ask everyone in Baghdad who has lost a brother. Cousin. Sister. Child—to speak their name in a recorder.
Go to every school, stand at the front of the class, take roll; for every empty desk, at least two dead.
Find every shop that sells cigarettes— ask how many more cartons they’ve sold this year.
Go to the bus station and buy ten tickets— offer them free to anyone who wants to leave.
Go see the coffin-maker. Ask how much cedar and pine he’s ordered this month.
The dead don’t require much. They don’t speak in numbers or tongues, they lie silent
waiting—to be counted. [End Page 1160]
Persis Karim, who teaches literature and creative writing at San Jose State University, is editor and contributing poet to Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora and co-editor of A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian Americans. Her poems have also appeared in Reed Magazine and Caesura. She is founder and co-director of the Association of Iranian American Writers, a national organization that promotes Iranian American writing and writers.
