Steven Croft

DARULAMAN MURDER MYSTERY

In a place where death causes shock
but rarely surprise, we hear the FBI
is helicoptering someone down
from Bagram -- workers clearing ground
for more wood frame and plywood
buildings found a body under dirt
at the south wall.

Bones, half-mummified by desert air
of Kabul valley, now home to a disturbed
nest of spiders, we all had an afternoon
to look after the FBI man officially said
from the remains of dishdasha, the
dental condition, the man was Afghan,
and got back on his helicopter.

Now, there's no justice, only mystery --
whatever happened was in the time
of a previous unit, none to question
now but Afghans, body-searched daily
at the gatehouse before moving
through camp like nameless spirits,
unapproached, barely seen, led by
minders to their menial jobs.

I wonder if there was any odor
in this place where ancient channels
along the streets slowly move sewage
down to the river, if the stray dogs
that roam scratched outside the camp's
wall which kept them from digging away
the concealing sand -- as, a chemlight
marking the hole along the wall, I move
like in a sci-fi thriller where death stalks
outside the warm research station
through the night to the MWR, wind
feeling like a ghost on my neck.


Steven reads "Darulaman Murder Mystery":



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Steven confesses: " We all felt an unusual surprise when a body was discovered inside our camp. Used to sights of often bloody but recognizably human bodies, these bones seemed alien from something human. Dismissed as 'Afghan' and so left there until later to attend to – it became a thing of nagging unease."

STEVEN CROFT is an Army combat veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and now lives on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia. His work has appeared in Sky Island Journal, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Poets Reading the News, So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, and other places.