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by Carlton Clayton
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(“There Are No Lakes in Riyadh” mobile version)
Patriot missiles rise out of the Arabian night like an apparition
and streak the sky like shooting stars.
Boom-Boom-Boom!
Chandeliers sway, dishes rattle, a glass shatters
on the floor.
We cluster in the streets, our eyes aloft. If it had
been gas …
Morning rises and foils the darkness.
Day begins.
Collateral damage. News just in:
Five missiles got through but missed their targets;
they fell into the lake.
Darkness recovers.
Boom-Boom-Boom!
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Carlton Clayton Carlton Clayton is a thirty-year Air Force retiree with tours in, among others, South Korea, Europe, and Saudi Arabia. A graduate of the Queens University of Charlotte MFA program with a concentration in creative nonfiction, he has work in or forthcoming in Pembroke Magazine, the New York Quarterly, and Iron Horse Literary Review. He is currently working on a memoir.
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