At a Pushpin in Zone 3 Beyond the machine-gunned cattle, the village smokes. The villagers mill at the checkpoint. They are leaving their world for the world's waiting rooms, leaving sleek buzzards to croak and hop, leaving the rubble of the chapel, the charred altar-cloth and melted candelabra, the knuckle of the martyr. They bear away seed corn, photos, babies, caged chickens, hoes, axes, cheap aluminum pots, hand-embroidered bedding. They leave behind a last crop, the churned fields fertilized with family. They sing no marching song. A shower settles the dust, erasing the heiroglyphs of dragged feet. © Dale R. Hobson. All rights reserved.