prisoner of landi kotal

disheveled children
shouting joyfully
running, playing
with tiny pebbles
in their puny palms
aiming for the bars

townspeople, passers by
through rusted bars glance
at cobwebbed body-cells
at dreams and desires
incarcerated and
forgotten under some
moth-eaten, lost verdict

kindly souls pass food
or furtive smiles
desultory looks
unaware they are
in life's prison too

landi kotal is a small frontier town, near torkham, at the border of pakistan and afghanistan. at one time it had a single room prison in the town square above a store-front.