Ways to count the dead

By Persis Karim, poet and professor at San Jose State University

"Keeping track of the Iraqi death toll isn't the job of the United States," a student said,
"and besides, how would we count the dead?"

Take their limbs strewn about the streets -
multiply by a thousand and one.

Ask everyone in Baghdad who has lost
a brother. Cousin. Sister. Child - to speak
their name in a recorder.

Go to every school, stand
at the front of the class, take roll:
for every empty desk, at least two dead.

Find every shop that sells cigarettes -
ask how many more cartons they've sold this year.

Go to the bus station and buy ten tickets -
offer them free to anyone who wants to leave.

Go see the coffin-maker. Ask how much
cedar and pine he's ordered this month.

The dead don't require much. They don't speak
in numbers or tongues, they lie silent

waiting- to be counted.