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Baghdad Poem

Predawn quiet in Baghdad

Born of worry and fear,

The madman's dream becomes nightmare

Now that the deadline is here.



Children sleep close to their parents,

Husbands watch over their wives:

The calculus of war noninclusive

Of the cost of innocent lives.



Diplomacy is dangling

Like sheets from a tattered clothesline;

And people of peace are now hanging

On this cruciform moment of time.