(on 26feb05)

AND ONE MORE

Eight suicide bombings took their toll.

Eight suicide bombers left fifty - or more -

Dead.

Eight of the dead, killers themselves.

One killer breezing into the holy Ashoura crowd

On bicycle.

One killer boarding a bus

To arrive among the commemorating Shiite crowd

To kill.

Four and more other killers

Walking into the newly empowered, defiant crowd

Killing.

Hundreds of thousands were there to be killed

But car bombers were banned this Ashoura holy day.

Not the one hundred eighty - or more - dead

After last year’s Sunni-dominated onslaught

But fifty - or more.

Only fifty - or more - Shiites.

Only eight killers this venerable day.

Is the insurgency losing steam?

A U.S. soldier was among those killed.

One more American soldier

One more added to the one thousand four hundred and ninety two -

Or more -

Killed in the Sunni-dominated onslaught.