The Signature of Osama Bin Laden
I am a fishbone
with two barbs in my tail:
above my cartoon cod-head,
an olive branch is hovering,
doveless, like a mutant tilde.
Here in my gorge I have just
gulped down a grenade,
its thin pin trailing,
awaiting a finger. One eye
is single, an unborn spawn.
The other is falling, a faint
fullstop in that space
where my neck has been nipped
and tucked. I am a strange
sperm in a flotilla
of white, seemingly speechless.
[September 2001]