Tea Party

By Shawn M. Jones

In a circle, we sit on wool rugs, hand woven
dyed shades of crimson, jet, and cream. 
Beneath the shade of a tree, 
the leaves a thousand shades of olive,
subdued by a shroud of beige  
dust as fine as talcum. 
A creeping chaos consuming all,
the ground remains of Alexander’s soldiers
discovering true warriors in 333 BC.

We sip boiling Afghan tea 
in the boiling Afghan sun.
Tea more sugar than of leaf, 
a boiling sickening syrup. 
Sour hard candies imported 
from Tehran.
Displays of wealth unimaginable 
to farmers, to conscripted suicide soldiers, to the 
children left orphaned by a war 
2500 years long.

This tea party’s host sits directly across. 
Immaculate, his pitch-black turban and 
coco brown tunic contrast against the
dust embedded gray of our camouflage.
Back straight for there are no chairs 
amongst combatants.
Rare that a syllable ever passed his lips,
that would send his smile into retreat.
This tea party host dominated with a smile
that said untouchable despite the kill order.

A smile scorched into my synapses
by a million pieces of wreckage,
a thousand bodies, naked…
Incinerated by untold tons of 
Suicide bombs.
The smell of burnt human flesh
carves its way under the skin and lives there.
The black paste of blood and sand and sweat
smells of violent copper, while pillows of
tar black smoke curses the sapphire skies.

This was the smile of the bombmaker 
who rats on his money men,
smiling at me.
I still regret not killing him.

****

Shawn M. Jones, a Pittsburgh native spent over a decade in the US Army as a paratrooper & combat engineer. He earned his master’s degree in psychology from Point Park University. He writes about his adventures...of Army life, being deployed to Kosovo, Iraq, and twice to Afghanistan, in addition to other human experiences. Currently, Shawn is attending the MFA program at Carlow University where his emphasis is on poetry.  Writing poetry is therapy for him.