Desert and mountains merge into brown haze
in my recollection of those days.
The smell of gunpowder or paupers' fires
could ignite a conflagration of memories
if I would not extinguish them
which I do.
But one burns ever clear, even in the fickle fog of memory
—the mongrel and her pups
scrounging for scraps around our camp
and the Afghan village below.
We watched them in their scavenging and their play
until one crystal blue and frigid day
when Randy captured the runt of the bunch
and fed her some of his meager lunch,
and placed her inside his jacket
where she slipped into rabbit chasing sleep
and did not make a peep
until I heard her whimper
as the bullet that sliced through her gut
lodged itself in Randy’s young heart.