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  • Foreign Wars
  • Michael Cavanagh (bio)

He remembered wool blankets everywhere in winter, and burkas, and shemaghs of houndstooth; he remembered the dull brown uniforms, the smell of bomb craters, the metal fragments flecked with blood, the wavering lamps in the streets where he carelessly walked one night alone. He remembered the ugly valleys where rifle shots cut the air, the immense mountains rising like holy mirages compelling belief and murder. He remembered the shadeless heat, the dry riverbed where the shattered father walked with his remaining son. Yes, yes, all these, and everywhere the aura of early death. He remembered too the undeserved courtesies, the secret smiles in alleyways, the native gabble, pleasing now in memory, the smell of lamb and couscous, the olives, the tea, the fragrant bread, and the women’s names: Sahar, who shone first, and Sabaa the gentle breeze, and Suha the star, and Sana the resplendent, and Saboora the patient and tolerant, and Samar the evening shadow, Sameeha the generous, and Shadiyah the singer of songs, her music, now far away, in the darkness of his bedroom, still heard. [End Page 223]

Michael Cavanagh

Michael Cavanagh, professor of English, emeritus, at Grinnell College, has published poetry in a variety of periodicals. His critical study of Seamus Heaney’s poetics, Professing Poetry, appeared in 2009.

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