“KM4” Poems & Drawings by Tom Sleigh and Michael Hafftka

Not English Somali Italian French the mouth

blown open in the Toyota battle wagon at KM4

speaks in a language never heard before.

Not the Absolute Speaker of the News,

not crisis chatter’s famine/flame,

the mouth blown open at KM4

speaks in a language never heard before.

Nothing solved or resolved, exactly as they were,

the old wars still flickering in the auras round their faces,

the mouth of smoke at KM4

mouths syllables of smoke never heard before.