Foreign Song

To bomb them,

we mustn’t have heard their music

or known their waterless night watch,

we mustn’t have seen how already

the desert was under constant death bells

ringing over sleeping cribs and dry wells.

We couldn’t have wanted

this eavesdropping

of names we’ve never pronounced

praying themselves towards death.

I try to believe in us—

we must not

have heard

their music.