In my case, it turns out to be poetry. I went to have my first mammogram yesterday. Everyone was warning me how much it was going to hurt. I was picturing giant compressors squashing until I couldn't breathe. So, I was pretty tense hanging out there in the waiting room, but I had Yusef Komunyakaa's new book Warhorses to keep me company and take my mind off things. I hadn't read a review of it, or anything. I just noticed it while looking for something else at the library. I loved his book Neon Venacular, and I'm in a constant losing battle to have a solid grasp of classic poetry as well as know what's currently happening.

What's currently happening for Komunyakaa is war—the Mameluke, Gilgamesh, "the old masters of Shock & Awe." Lots and lots of bloody war. Reading these poems was, frankly, terrifying.

They swarmed down over the town
&left bodies floating in the ditches
& moats. Bloated with silence,
blue with flies on the rooftops.

They gave the children candy
made of honey & nuts, scented with belladonna
to weed out the weak. Bundles of silk
rolled out like a rainbow for the women.

On the wild forgetful straw beds
they created a race, a new tongue
to sing occidental prayers & regrets.

Their camphor lanterns mastered darkness.
All the taboos of lovemaking were broken.
Soon, laughter rose again from the fields.

It sounds like the laughter of hysteria to me after a society has been destroyed. He writes about things I've heard of, like strapping dolphins with plastic explosives or torturing prisoners, but he writes it in a way that I cannot look away. I got to the poem about the two towers when I was called for my mammogram.

First surprise, they did it standing up. Only one part of my body got squished. Second surprise, it didn't hurt. I don’t know why, but I'm grateful. Now, I'm just hoping for good results and an end to war.