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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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