Kabul, I Want To Go Back Poem by Sujit Sinha

I want to go back

The day we left
The city was no different
The lurking fear of death
The mobile held tight
Dreading that it may ring
With a call that in fevered pitch
Tells of who may have been there
Where the bombs claimed
It’s latest dead.

Mother shops for apples
Brother’s office is far
Father retired, sits home, worrying,
Son walks every day to catch bus
Every day all wait to hear
News of the next blast.

The bomb is a solemn person
No shrill sounds
Nor rattle tattle
A low thud that moves the earth below
A slow quiver of the floor
That hurries a hundred good men
To their untimely graves.

Take me back there O fate
I can’t sleep here in a quiet bed
When the men and women I knew
Wake each day
Wondering how long more they have to stay.