Son Avenges Father's Murder to Cheers of Thousands (AP)
by Robinson Dunham

    I wonder if they sold popcorn
    to the crowd awaiting the young son's rite of passage.
    Did they clap or do the wave?
    Did the scoreboard flip?
    Was it 1-1 or
    is there an extra point for
    praising a God while pulling a trigger?

    Standing just above his mother's waist at ten
    he fired four shots into the man who
    fired one into his father making
    this young deliverer the oldest male in the family.

    So mom, sis, and his six year old brother watched
    him load the rifle
    lonely among thousands
    in the center of the dry dust sports field in Afghanistan.

    Murder ringing in heads louder than a gun- blast's echo already but
    these particular four bullets were wrapped in a page from the Quran and
    wax- sealed by a judge
    kissed by a king.

    "Under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam,
    relatives of a victim carry out the death sentence."

    The fans were ushered out soon after.
    The grounds crew had to prepare the field for
    soccer in the evening.






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