i keep hearing
about suicide bombers
and wondering if they are tallied
with the casualties
when the reporters
intone the body count

i picture a young man
unimpressive in a plain wooden chair
while a friend starts
the video camera
and he begins to explain himself
to the ones he is leaving behind

later on before he triggers
he notes that the world looks amazing
and he thinks of something else he should have said
but knowing now
that there is never enough time to say everything
he shouts a phrase and ends it there

when the reporters add the bodies up
is he counted among the dead or is he
just seen as the mechanism
two legs two arms with the face leached away
bearing the bomb that had so little to say
of the man who could not say it all another way