JANET I. BUCK
Buried Rubies

It's a delicious rumor running
its thin band under the Evening News.
The Taliban has fled one city,
left its scar a cuticle
hanging from the battered ruins.
Defections beat the stinging sand.
Camel humps begin to smile.
Venders push a scrap of music -
buried brick of gold it was,
wasting years in closet dark,
the Hell of which I'll never know.

Several women lift their shrouds.
Burka, djellaba, sari, toga virilis -
oppression spelled so many ways,
woven in religion's cloth,
turned against identity.
Maybe we are hangers down
a rotting cast that would
have peeled its heaviness.
I have a dream of ears and necks
emancipated from a noose.

Of vinegar tongues tasting the moon,
deciphering bowls of sugarcane.
I have a dream of fleshy cheeks
turning rubies in the sun.
Skin no longer Jezebel.  
Heart no longer withered prune.
Mandolins are humming up from secrecy.  
Lids lift crust around a sore.
  I pray a shining eye remains.
That peace is more than
hope's pastiche, threads of which
will ravel when our soldiers leave.
I've had such a Hallmark life
of sequined luck and fluff parades.
Closest thing I ever stitched for Barbie Dolls -
muumuus for Hawaiian luaus
staged on spotless carpet floors.