Armed Iraqi Woman Poem by Gert Strydom

I saw her in a newspaper,
standing resolute
a beautiful woman with a rifle
in her hands and needing bothto carry it
and the chador had slipped from her face
revealing it,

and in her eyes were raging fire
totally resolute with her head held high
looking like an angry eagle
ripped out of the sky

and what did the well armed,
American soldiers do
when they found her?

Did they shoot her down
as another enemy,
just another casualty of war?

Did they chase her into a side street,
cornered her there
to rip the chador from her face?

And what happened to her,
nobody will ever know.