The road runs parallel to the stricken earth;
it’s a strip the stars forgot;
they fled with those that survived Sinjar. The hatred of the sun bakes this land where women were
sold for a farthing or more.

And beside it, on every light pole strung to the tops
are the head shots of those who gave their bodies
to be sacrificed
and riddled and rotted.

And only the highway remembers them,
and the scrub weeds
and the occasional dusty Nissan with men inside clutching their AKs and cigarette butts or otherwise drown.

Of his writing, Mr. Godoy says, “Poetry is bound to my soul.”