On The Lynching Of Saddam Hussein Poem by Leo Yankevich

“To die not knowing why is to die like an animal...
To die like a human being you have at least got
to know why it is done to you.”
—Ezra Pound

You hear your lungs begin to rattle.
This is the rattle mother told
you about: it comes before your death
          as vital organs fail.

It is the end of agonizing
suffocation, when life puts
a pillow on your nose and mouth.
          All death is suffocation.

Indifferent light penetrates
the jello in your bedside bowl,
and hell absorbs the fluorescent bulb’s
          impalpable low heat.

You died with tubes inside your mouth,
gasping for one more breath of air,
your fragile fists still clenched in fear
          before almighty Allah.

No mercenary’s noose was placed
around your neck, as round Saddam’s.
You did not chasten craven tormentors,
          falling through the gallows.