Poetry

AFGHANISTAN CONFESSION #4

The first day
our first sign.

I lift this stone, that piece
of concrete
place it on another.
The sun sets

at the end of the runway
in Kandahar. We build

an inukshuk without knowing
quite what it is, like us

out of place, but hopeful
it may signal safety

to more than the planes
landing, heavy with war.

AFGHANISTAN CONFESSION #18

the commanders tell us
we’ve done a good job

they are counting
the dead Taliban

on the hillside.
I rest my paradigm

still smoking
from the last

shift.

Victor Enns is a poet making his home in Winnipeg. A founder of Rhubarb magazine, his 2005 collection “Lucky Man,” was nominated for the 2005 McNally Robinson Manitoba Book of the Year Award.