She stands with her right leg slightly forward,
Cocked back with the weight of her body
Resting entirely on her left leg. I can see the outline
Of it in her orange dress. Orange with floral in blues,
Yellows and greens. Her left hand on that hip, elbow cocked
Right arm outstretched, palm to the sky angrily
Gesturing only two feet from me; Hazel eyes stare daggers.
I glance over at her as she waves her hand wildly,
Sternly shouting what I can only imagine are vast amounts
Of obscenities at me, with a hint of sarcasm.

“Are you enjoying this?” I picture her saying –
“Is it not bad enough you intrude on my family’s meal?”
I rifle around through another dresser drawer; a routine
Search of this neighborhood, house to house.
In the next drawer are more bras and panties. Shiny
Satin, some rather elegant, lacy. Not at all what I expected
I would find in an Iraqi woman’s wardrobe let alone
What might be under that floral hajib at this very moment.
Our eyes meet as I think it, and the look on her face speaks volumes.

Somewhere else in the house are the thuds of things
Being tossed to the floor; chatter of the men as they search.
“Do you like those, American? Eh?” her thick, guttural
Words, acrid as they roll off her tongue and onto
The floor. They are lost on me. “This is why you came to my country?
Into my home? To dig through my under garments?”

She chuckles one frustratingly brief moment as she shakes her head.
I close the middle drawer and begin to rifle through the top drawer
Touching her stockings I glance up at her, my left
Hand grasping a pile of her womanhood. She shifts on her heel
Her other hip out, dropping her right arm, letting it slap
On her thigh and exhaling coarsely as she looks away;
Angry embarrassment. ‘This room is clear’ I say shutting
The dresser drawers, making for the door where a soldier
Stands. “Of course it is you asshole!” she must be saying as
She follows me out of the bedroom in the same way
That she followed me in; hazel eyes drilling a hole through
The back of my vest’s Kevlar collar and into my skull.

With the house called clean we move out into the courtyard
As her slender figure is on my heels. ‘Shukran’ I quickly thank her,
Not wanting to look at her anymore, perhaps out of my own embarrassment.
Our awkward intrusiveness now ending, words spit as we depart;
“Disgrace can only be washed away with blood!”