Someone must clean the mess.

         Wash the blindfolds.
         Stack the chains in a well-labeled box.
         Wipe the floor where the men were tied down in diapers.

Someone must measure the medicine.

         So the swelling in the man’s legs,
         the one standing naked for 54 hours,
         will go down just enough to keep him standing.

Someone must pretend the information is real.

         Pretend the muttered answers
         gargled between sessions of drowning,
         will be honest.

Someone must wash their hands.

         Bent over the sink, scrubbing, scrubbing
         an Arab’s damned, dark blood.
         Again, again, again.

Someone must select the insects.

         Decide which creature will sting
         the body but not chew through
         the wood of the confinement box.

Someone must go home to their daughter.

         Reheat a plate of beans for their 12 year old girl. Try not to see
         the raw wrists, the dislocated shoulder, the tube inserted up the rectum,
         the time of death.

Someone must tuck their baby girl into bed.

 

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein released a controversial study this past week of the “Enhanced Interrogation” program used under the Bush administration by the CIA. The report contained numerous sanctioned atrocities and demonstrated that little to no information was procured from torturing detainees. This effort to combat terrorism failed, cost many their lives, and is a violent abuse of power. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/cia-torture-report-abuses-rectal-feeding