Story

Basra

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center

lights stutter on and off.
the sun rises and sets behind heavy curtains
while thousands of ants slowly inherit this tile and plaster to the desert.

Abbas Ibn Fernas' wings spread like a warning.

in the smooth marble stomach of our abandoned cities,
brush the flies away from the corner of his mouth

'what kind of men lived and worked in buildings like these?'
'strange to know that they were us...'