She can’t say no
to armed hitchhikers
in military uniforms
when they wave her down.
She could speed up
and feel the hail of bullets
slicing through the car frame,
piercing her body.
She wouldn’t live to tell the story.
So she stops and smiles,
pretends to be polite,
even though she could be one
minute away from becoming a ghost.
All four climb in.
Guns, pointing perilously out windows,
gape at fleeting scenery.
Stone-faced soldiers stare
straight ahead as if on a
special mission.
She feels her knees
wobble under her skirt.
Her mind in overdrive,
she sees her body
like a large rice sack
lying on the roadside
next to firewood,
raped, mutilated, lifeless.
The voice beside her
cracks the silence,
interrupts her deathly vision.
“Stop, we getting down here, ma.”
Althea Mark-Romeo [aka Althea Romeo-Mark] (born 1948) Antigua
Source: Poetas del Mundo
From Check Points and Curfews © Althea Mark-Romeo 11.06. 2009
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