Baghdad's Samurai (Tear of the Mountain Flower)

So it was you.

She spoke to the sniper lying

on his stomach on the roof,

her voice soft, faerie-light

and almost lilting.

It was you who woke me

from the most beautiful dream

I'd ever had.

She slowly stepped out of the shadows

and into the moonlight;

the sounds of her footfalls

were the sounds of nothing at all.

Her appearance

gave the sniper quite a start.

But his eyes made it only past

the strangely twisted oryx antlers

fixed to her helmet

to the swords at her sides.

Those were enough to send him

to his feet to quickly end

her surprise visit.

He charged and grabbed for her throat,

but in the same breath

was cut once under the arm,

twice on the side, and

flipped forward onto his face -

again.

He then lay bleeding, his arms pinned, and

with her knee resting heavily

on the most delicate part of the

human spine.

And you know,

she whispered,

voice cracking with so much sorrow

that he almost felt pity

though pain,

It was like he was here again.

We rode our horses through the valley

and walked to the mountaintop where

the cherry flowers bloomed,

and he held me just as before,

and I sang.

I haven't had a single thought

of song since I lost him.

She paused to wipe her eyes

with the back of her gloved hand

and the sniper exhaled with relief,

believing it the nature of women

to be gentle, to pardon, to forgive.

But he blinked in the same space

of time it took for her wrath to prevail

over her mercy.

She was not God.

His throat was savagely cut

with all the furious grace of someone

beautiful

and

deeply tormented.

She kicked his body to the side

with her black, unnoticeably bloodstained

boot and stood silent and tall

as if she had never knelt

to commit the act of killing.

But, as she turned to head back down the stairs,

she began softly humming

some mournful melody

heard only

in a dream.