All The While The Women

Days & nights I carried two weapons everywhere.
          I wore pockets of bullets

          across my chest. I wasn’t
of age. I was pretty

much a virgin. Nights I’d watch women
          wail & scream

          as I stole their son, husband, brother.
I’d search these men, inch

by inch, between the legs, up the ass cheeks,
          then walk them, hands zip-tied,

          to the truck & all the while the women
screamed. Nights & days

all of us — eight, ten, a dozen soldiers — stood there
           mute, numb, as quiet as we could be

           in a room filled with screaming. Sometimes
I may have even yawned or laughed.

Sometimes, some long nights, I’d pace & mutter fucking
          Jesus while the women also spoke,

         in refrains, their god’s name,
& I’d want to scream back but couldn’t.