The Girl with the Leash
doesn’t appear to worry much
about its other end. Fun-loving, power-
mad, a thoughtlessly
vindictive woman of action, the perfect
Abu Ghraib patsy. Already
an irresistible wave of
retribution gathers behind her
back, curling above her bobbed
head. Her leash, poor child,
connects to the nearly-wriggled-
out pin of a fragmentation
grenade. Rummy
will use the body as a hand
towel, shred her like paper
wiping himself
clean on her fatigues.
If she were paper I
would write upon her
atrocity photo my
implausible disavowals, my
poems of innocence.
Here under her left nipple,
and again across her smooth-shaven
mons Veneris, I would inscribe
anti-war protests, my solidarity
with the oppressed. Poet,
not a shooter of rifles, I do
what I can with the time
at my disposal. But we
are attached, possessing
and possessed,
my mistress,
my bitch.
—Paul Watsky
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An earlier version of this poem appeared on the Pemmican Press website.