I, too, have seen Andorra.

Like the clean-cut men at Creech
who send their missiles
screaming into huts in Waristan,
I came by stealth,
with electronic caution;

watched you coldly
through the disembodied eyeball
of a satellite.

I set and carefully reset coordinates,

clicked on arrows,
nudged a needle on a calibrated scale,
refined my focus...

From the smudge of brown and green,
a live topography emerged,
with houses, schools and shops —
the scattered blocks
of some abandoned childhood game —

and streets where traffic stopped
to give my probing cursor right of way.

I found your home,
and heard again, I thought,
the clacking of your ancient instrument,
the ding of carriage bell
that warned your poem of the precipice.

I paused,
my index finger poised impassively
above the crouching mouse.

And then I moved away.



NOTE: Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, is home to
the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (drone)
that is used to kill people identified as "terrorists".