War-bride,
is what they call me at the bar,
neck-deep in my Corona. I have married
my grief, brought it to the altar
kissed its rotted gums, bedded
its skeletons; held the heaving heart of it
in my teeth. Iraq,
take me home. Or at least fuck me
like you mean it.

To the boy
who buys me drinks, calls me baby:
If I cannot be the man you want, then at least hold me
like I am. Twist your face when entering my body
as though someone's put a bullet in your back:
which is to say, become the foreigner
between the bulls-eye and me,
the Iraqi sky stretched
blood-burst and blinking above us.
God closes his eye
as I pull the trigger,
as I pull you inside me. From a hundred yards,
I see the whites of his eyes, crawling veins
as the bullet enters his mouth, the spray
of blood-spittle. Orgasmic death-rattle
in his throat.

Ramadi: the ghosts of American soldiers
come running through your streets at night,
kicking down your doors.
Ramadi: you are haunted.
Ramadi: I kill your son
and become him in one, cradled
in your red-slick arms
bullet wounds weeping
me a lullaby.

In America, no one will swallow
my bullets but the boy who cocoons me
inside him, the one who dies
every night just to keep me
in his bed.

We cross the border
and are once more filthy and loud
and battle-still, until
the sun bleeds dry.
Each man pulls off his armor, unloads
his foreign half-lives into one cupped hand
while the other clenches
on his cock, each one of us stifling quiet
blood-lust into the waiting mouth
of the night.
A soldier, guttering in climax,
is the closest we come
to surrender.

The boy at the bar, who has eyes like light
through a green bottle, who I will finger
like a filthy glass – he licks his lips,
lays a hand on my arm and says
military man, huh? Hot.
He takes me home and we have a good life,
for a while. He puts his hands on me
like he's writing a ransom note,
kisses like he's trying to pull out my ghosts.
I share a fag with him, become the kind of love
that ashes in his lungs. And because I will leave him
choked, leave him breathless and still wanting me –
of course, it begs the question:
How many? Again. Louder.
How many did you kill?
In answer, I pull back my lips, bared teeth.
Cry havoc and let slip
the dogs of war.

Lay down your children, Iraq.
We're not through with you yet.
When does it come to an end?
When you deep-throat
my bullet?
When the bleeding sky,
the foreigner on the building,
comes back like the ghost
of everyone I've fucked?

Iraq, I've always wanted
to be held
like I'm dying.