Upon a disembodied shooting-trainer’s command,
Aamilah knelt, accepted a Glock in hand,
she felt cold metal, zeroed-in on a target,
she saw a dark human-shape, riddled with holes,
lots of successful head-shots, some in limbs,
presumably designed to slow-down the dark-target.
The trainer willed to make Aamilah “Expert,”
a pious advocate of “Just War, kill or or be killed,”
he scolded her for mistakenly turning the Glock
toward him, “Hey, one never-ever does that Aamilah!”
He recommended squeezing trigger very gently,
like beckoning for help, tough-love will exit oily barrels.
Goosebumps formed on feathery skin,
she tousled aside locks of blonde hair,
Aamilah was eight years old again,
and the black-target came to life, grimaced,
and Aamilah thought she knew him.
To qualify as Expert,
she needed to score 10 head-shots,
5-rounds into Hans Andersen’s arms and legs.
“C’mon, Aamilah… open fire!
I cannot stay here forever,
waiting for just one Angel to qualify.”
Aamilah trembled, perished once in Falluja,
“Ibtilal” given to her for birthday.1
Call of duty, she closed eyes, squeezed trigger,
little shapes dived into a sand-box,
a teacher told them to “unbutton shirts,
get as low to ground as possible!”
Loud noises, a lock-down in heaven,
Aamilah’s rounds missed everything,
she was sent back for more practice,
executed again in Sandy Hook Elementary,
Aamila looked down range, Nuclear Age, a Kalashnikov.
- In Arabic, “Ibtilal” means occupation, i.e.; Crusaders who slaughtered Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Christians. From Nir Rosen’s “In the Belly of the Green Bird.” [↩]