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by Edward Byrne I Dark smoke rose from charred upper floors of a factory farther on shore. Only a night before, the squads of soldiers had closed the port, secured those old boats moored along the wharf, fragile cargo warming all morning long under a scorching summer sun. II When my father and I viewed the shooting through field glasses, we counted a couple of dead on the dock--pockets searched at first, arms and legs bound, then their bodies lifted, tossed to the sea and lost to sight, one black shoe bobbing like a buoy. III For more than a week we said little to each other, told nobody else about what we had seen. We knew we were only visitors, just stopping off for a few days, making our way to Morocco-- nothing but tourists, sightseers drawn to odd places of interest. IV Even today, though thirty years later, as a small gray cloud hovers above the picnic charcoal pit, where my son and I are grilling our holiday dinner, I still think of that July when the two distant figures disappeared, slid beneath rising waters of an afternoon tide. Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.
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